<£tution 


THE  WRITINGS   OF 
HARRIET  BEECHER   STOWE 

WITH  BIOGRAPHICAL   INTRODUCTIONS 

PORTRAITS,   AND   OTHER 

ILL  USTRA  TIONS 

IN  SIXTEEN  VOLUMES 
VOLUME  VIII 


Copyright,  18G8, 
BY  TICKNOE  &  FIELDS. 

Copyright,  1364,  1892,  1896, 
BY  HARRIET   BEECHER  STOWE. 

Copyright,  1896, 
BY  HOUGHTON,  MIFFLIN   &  CO. 

All  rights  reserved. 


The  Riverside  Press,  Cambridge,  Mass.,  U.  S.  A. 
Electrotyped  and  Printed  by  H.  O.  Houghtou  &  Co. 


CONTENTS  /V>  ft 


PAGE 

INTRODUCTORY  NOTE     ..      ^f    ......     vii 

HOUSE  AND   HOME  PAPERS  \^^f 

I.  THE  RAVAGES  OF  A  CARPET 1 

*  II.    HOMEKEEPING   VS.   HOUSEKEEPING 16 

^TrTT^WHAT  is  A  HOME  ? 33 

IV.   THE  ECONOMY  OF  THE  BEAUTIFUL 54 

V.   RAKING  UP  THE  FIRE 69 

VI.  THE  LADY  WHO  DOES  HER  OWN  WORK          ....  85 

VII.   WHAT  CAN  BE  GOT  IN  AMERICA 101 

VIII.  ECONOMY 112 

IX.   SERVANTS 133 

X.   COOKERY 153 

XI.   OUR  HOUSE 182 

XII.  HOME  RELIGION 212 

THE  CHIMNEY-CORNER    ^\>"$ 

^  WHAT  WILL  You  DO  WITH  HER  ?  OR,  THE  WOMAN  QUES 
TION        2.31 

^ft.  WOMAN'S  SPHERE 249 

III.  A  FAMILY  TALK  ON  RECONSTRUCTION       ....  274 

"i¥r  Is  WOMAN  A  WORKER  ? 300 

V.   THE  TRANSITION 316 

VI.   BODILY  RELIGION:  A  SERMON  ON  GOOD  HEALTH       .        .  330 

VII.    HOW    SHALL    WE    ENTERTAIN    OUR   COMPANY  ?      .           .            .  347 

VIII.     HOW   SHALL    WE    BE    AMUSED  ? 362 

IX.   DKESS,  OR  WHO  MAKES  THE  FASHIONS       ....  374 

X.  WHAT  ARE  THE  SOURCES  OF  BEAUTY  IN  DRESS  ?       .        .  395 

XI.   THE  CATHEDRAL 412 

XII.  THE  NEW  YEAR 425 

XIII.   THE  NOBLE  ARMY  OF  MARTYRS 438 

OUR  SECOND   GIRL 449 

A  SCHOLAR'S   ADVENTURES   IN  THE   COUNTRY     .        .  473 

TRIALS   OF  A   HOUSEKEEPER 487 

The  frontispiece  is  from  a  photograph  of  Mrs.  Stowe  taken  in  1884.  The 
vignette  of  Mrs.  Stowe's  later  Hartford  home  is  from  a  drawing  by  Charles 
Copeland. 


INTEODUCTOKY   NOTE 

MKS.  STOWE  had  early  and  very  practical  acquaintance 
with  the  art  of  housekeeping.  It  strikes  one  at  first  as  a 
little  incongruous  that  an  author  who  devoted  her  great 
powers  to  stirring  the  conscience  of  a  nation  should  from 
time  to  time,  and  at  one  period  especially,  give  her  mind 
to  the  ordering  of  family  life,  but  a  moment's  consideration 
will  show  that  the  same  woman  was  earnestly  at  the  bottom 
of  each  effort.  In  a  letter  to  the  late  Lord  Denman,  written 
in  1853,  Mrs.  Stowe,  speaking  of  Uncle  Tom's  Cabin,  said : 
"  I  wrote  what  I  did  because,  as  a  woman,  as  a  mother,  I 
was  oppressed  and  heartbroken  with  the  sorrows  and  in 
justice  which  I  saw,  and  because,  as  a  Christian,  I  felt  the 
dishonor  to  Christianity. "  Not  under  the  stress  of  pas 
sionate  emotion,  yet  largely  from  a  sense  of  real  responsi 
bility  as  a  woman,  a  mother,  and  a  Christian,  she  occupied 
herself  with  those  concerns  of  every-day  life  which  so  dis 
tinctly  appeal  to  a  woman's  mind.  How  to  order  a  house 
hold,  how  to  administer  that  little  kingdom  over  which  a 
woman  rules,  and,  above  all,  how  to  make  family  life  stable, 
pure,  and  conservative  of  the  highest  happiness,  these  were 
the  questions  which  she  asked  herself  constantly,  and  which 
she  tried  to  solve,  not  only  incidentally  in  her  fiction,  but 
directly  in  her  essays,  and  in  that  field  of  one  tenth  fiction 
and  nine  tenths  didacticism,  which  constitutes  most  of  the 
present  volume. 

A  Scholar's  Adventures  in  the  Country  and  Trials  of  a 
Housekeeper  appeared  in  the  miscellany  to  which  she  gave 
the  name  of  The  Mayflower,  and  reflect  humorously  the 


viii  INTRODUCTORY   NOTE 

Cincinnati  experiences  which  again  are  playfully  recounted 
in  letters  published  in  her  son's  Life.  The  former,  con 
tributed  in  1850  to  The  National  Era,  was  drawn  pretty 
closely  from  the  experiments  of  Professor  Stowe.  It  is 
noticeable  that  in  this  paper  and  in  Our  Second  Girl, 
which  was  contributed  to  The  Atlantic  Monthly  for  Janu 
ary,  1868,  the  author  poses  as  the  masculine  member  of 
the  household,  as  if  this  assumption  gave  her  some  advan 
tage  in  the  point  of  view.  At  any  rate,  she  adopted  the 
same  role  when  she  came  more  deliberately  to  survey  a  wide 
field  in  a  series  of  articles. 

The  House  and  Home  Papers  were  contributed  first  to 
The  Atlantic  Monthly,  and  afterward  published  in  book 
form  as  the  production  of  one  Christopher  Crowfield, 
though  there  was  not  the  slightest  attempt  otherwise  at 
disguising  the  authorship.  The  immediate  occasion  of  the 
papers  was  no  doubt  the  removal  of  the  Stowes  from 
Andover  and  their  establishment  in  Hartford,  an  event 
which  took  place  shortly  before  the  papers  began  to  appear 
in  The  Atlantic.  The  years  which  followed  during  the 
first  Hartford  residence  saw  also  a  marriage  in  the  family 
and  new  problems  of  daily  life  constantly  presenting  them 
selves,  so  that  a  similar  series  appeared  in  the  same  maga 
zine,  purporting  to  be  from  the  same  householder,  entitled 
The  Chimney  Corner.  This  series,  indeed,  entered  rather 
more  seriously  into  questions  of  social  morality,  and  deep 
ened  in  feeling  as  it  proceeded.  The  eleventh  section  is  a 
\varm  appreciation  of  the  woman  who  figured  so  largely  in 
Mrs.  Stowe's  early  life,  and  the  last  two  papers  rose,  as  the 
reader  will  see,  to  the  height  of  national  memories.  Mrs. 
Fields  has  preserved  for  us,  in  her  Days  with  Mrs.  Stowe, 
a  striking  record  of  the  mingling  of  the  great  and  the  near 
in  this  writer's  mind.  The  period  of  which  she  writes  is 
that  in  which  The  Chimney  Corner  series  was  drawing  to  a 
close :  — 


INTRODUCTORY   NOTE  ix 

"  In  the  autumn  of  1864  she  wrote :  '  I  feel  I  need  to 
write  in  these  days,  to  keep  me  from  thinking  of  things  that 
make  me  dizzy  and  blind,  and  fill  my  eyes  with  tears,  so 
that  I  cannot  see  the  paper.  I  mean  such  things  as  are 
being  done  where  our  heroes  are  dying  as  Shaw  died.  It 
is  not  wise  that  all  our  literature  should  run  in  a  rut  cut 
through  our  hearts  and  red  with  our  blood.  I  feel  the 
need  of  a  little  gentle  household  merriment  and  talk  of 
common  things,  to  indulge  which  I  have  devised  the  fol 
lowing.' 

"  Notwithstanding  her  view  of  the  need,  and  her  skill 
fully  devised  plans  to  meet  it,  she  soon  sent  another  epistle, 
showing  how  impossible  it  was  to  stem  the  current  of  her 
thought :  — 

"  '  November  29, 1864. 
"'Mr  DEAR  FRIEND,— 

"  *  I  have  sent  my  New  Year's  article,  the  result  of  one  of 
those  peculiar  experiences  which  sometimes  occur  to  us 
writers.  I  had  planned  an  article,  gay,  sprightly,  wholly 
domestic ;  but  as  I  began  and  sketched  the  pleasant  home 
and  quiet  fireside,  an  irresistible  impulse  wrote  for  me  what 
followed,  —  an  offering  of  sympathy  to  the  suffering  and 
agonized,  whose  homes  have  forever  been  darkened.  Many 
causes  united  at  once  to  force  on  me  this  vision,  from  which 
generally  I  shrink,  but  which  sometimes  will  not  be  denied,  — 
will  make  itself  felt. 

" '  Just  before  I  went  to  New  York  two  of  my  earliest  and 
most  intimate  friends  lost  their  oldest  sons,  captains  and 
majors,  —  splendid  fellows  physically  and  morally,  beautiful, 
brave,  religious,  uniting  the  courage  of  soldiers  to  the  faith  of 
martyrs,  —  and  when  I  went  to  Brooklyn  it  seemed  as  if  I  were 
hearing  some  such  thing  almost  every  day ;  and  Henry,  in  his 
profession  as  minister,  has  so  many  letters  full  of  imploring 
anguish,  the  cry  of  hearts  breaking  that  ask  help  of  him.' "... 


HOUSEHOLD   PAPERS   AND   STORIES 


HOUSE  AND  HOME  PAPERS 
I 

THE  RAVAGES  OF   A  CARPET 

"  MY  dear,  it  7s  so  cheap  !  " 

These  words  were  spoken  by  my  wife,  as  she  sat  grace 
fully  on  a  roll  of  Brussels  carpet  which  was  spread  out  in 
flowery  lengths  on  the  floor  of  Messrs.  Ketchem  &  Co. 

"  It 's  so  cheap  !  » 

Milton  says  that  the  love  of  fame  is  the  last  infirmity  of 
noble  minds.  I  think  he  had  not  rightly  considered  the 
subject.  I  believe  that  last  infirmity  is  the  love  of  getting 
things  cheap  !  Understand  me,  now.  I  don't  mean  the 
love  of  getting  cheap  things,  by  which  one  understands 
showy,  trashy,  ill-made,  spurious  articles,  bearing  certain 
apparent  resemblances  to  better  things.  All  really  sensible 
people  are  quite  superior  to  that  sort  of  cheapness.  But 
those  fortunate  accidents,  which  put  within  the  power  of  a 
man  things  really  good  and  valuable  for  half  or  a  third  of 
their  value,  what  mortal  virtue  and  resolution  can  with 
stand  ?  My  friend  Brown  has  a  genuine  Murillo,  the  joy 
of  his  heart  and  the  light  of  his  eyes,  but  he  never  fails  to 
tell  you,  as  its  crowning  merit,  how  he  bought  it  in  South 
America  for  just  nothing,  —  how  it  hung  smoky  and 
deserted  in  the  back  of  a  counting-room,  and  was  thrown  in 


2  HOUSE   AND    HOME    TAPERS 

as  a  makeweight  to  bind  a  bargain,  and,  upon  being  cleaned 
turned  out  a  genuine  Murillo;  and  then  he  takes  out  his 
cigar,  and  calls  your  attention  to  the  points  in  it ;  he  adjusts 
the  curtain  to  let  the  sunlight  fall  just  in  the  right  spot ; 
he  takes  you  to  this  and  the  other  point  of  view  ;  and  all 
this  time  you  must  confess  that,  in  your  mind  as  well  as 
his,  the  consideration  that  he  got  all  this  beauty  for  ten 
dollars  adds  lustre  to  the  painting.  Brown  has  paintings 
there  for  which  he  paid  his  thousands,  and,  being  well 
advised,  they  are  worth  the  thousands  he  paid ;  but  this 
ewe  lamb  that  he  got  for  nothing  always  gives  him  a  secret 
exaltation  in  ;hic  own  eyes.  He  seems  to  have  credited  to 
himself  .personally  merit  to  the  amount  of  what  he  should 
have  paid  fer  the  picture.  Then  there  is  Mrs.  Croesus,  at 
the  party  yesterday  evening,  expatiating  to  my  wife  on  the 
surprising  cheapness  of  her  point-lace  set.  "  Got  for  just 
nothing  at  all,  my  dear !  "  and  a  circle  of  admiring  listeners 
echoes  the  sound.  "  Did  you  ever  hear  anything  like  it  ? 
I  never  heard  of  such  a  thing  in  my  life  ;  "  and  away  sails 
Mrs.  Croesus  as  if  she  had  a  collar  composed  of  all  the  car 
dinal  virtues.  In  fact,  she  is  buoyed  up  with  a  secret  sense 
of  merit,  so  that  her  satin  slippers  scarcely  touch  the  carpet. 
Even  I  myself  am  fond  of  showing  a  first  edition  of  "  Para 
dise  Lost "  for  which  I  gave  a  shilling  in  a  London  book 
stall,  and  stating  that  I  would  not  take  a  hundred  dollars 
for  it.  Even  I  must  confess  there  are  points  on  which  I 
am  mortal. 

But  all  this  while  my  wife  sits  on  her  roll  of  carpet, 
looking  into  my  face  for  approbation,  and  Marianne  and 
Jenny  are  pouring  into  my  ear  a  running  fire  of  "  How 
sweet !  How  lovely  !  Just  like  that  one  of  Mrs.  Twee- 
dleum's !  " 

"  And  she  gave  two  dollars  and  seventy-five  cents  a  yard 
for  hers,  and  this  is  "  — 

My  wife  here  put  her  hand  to  her  mouth  and  pronounced 


THE    RAVAGES    OF   A   CARPET  3 

the  incredible  sum  in  a  whisper,  with  a  species  of  sacred 
awe,  common,  as  I  have  observed,  to  females  in  such  inter 
esting  crises.  In  fact  Mr.  Ketchem,  standing  smiling  and 
amiable  by,  remarked  to  me  that  really  he  hoped  Mrs.  Crow- 
field  would  not  name  generally  what  she  gave  for  the  arti 
cle,  for  positively  it  was  so  far  below  the  usual  rate  of 
prices  that  he  might  give  offense  to  other  customers ;  but 
this  was  the  very  last  of  the  pattern,  and  they  were  anxious 
to  close  off  the  old  stock,  and  we  had  always  traded  with 
them,  and  he  had  a  great  respect  for  my  wife's  father,  who 
had  always  traded  with  their  firm,  and  so,  when  there  were 
any  little  bargains  to  be  thrown  in  any  one's  way,  why, 
he  naturally,  of  course  —  'And  here  Mr.  Ketchem  bowed 
gracefully  over  the  yardstick  to  my  wife,  and  I  consented. 

Yes,  I  consented  ;  but  whenever  I  think  of  myself  at 
that  moment,  I  always  am  reminded,  in  a  small  way,  of 
Adam  taking  the  apple ;  and  my  wife,  seated  on  that  roll 
of  carpet,  has  more  than  once  suggested  to  my  mind  the 
classic  image  of  Pandora  opening  her  unlucky  box.  In 
fact,  from  the  moment  I  had  blandly  assented  to  Mr. 
Ketchem's  remarks,  and  said  to  my  wife,  with  a  gentle  air 
of  dignity,  "  Well,  my  dear,  since  it  suits  you,  I  think  you 
had  better  take  it,"  there  came  a  load  on  my  prophetic 
soul  which  not  all  the  fluttering  and  chattering  of  my 
delighted  girls  and  the  more  placid  complacency  of  my 
wife  could  entirely  dissipate.  I  presaged  I  know  not  what 
of  coming  woe,  and  all  I  presaged  came  to  pass. 

In  order  to  know  just  what  came  to  pass,  I  must  give 
you  a  view  of  the  house  and  home  into  which  this  carpet 
was  introduced. 

My  wife  and  I  were  somewhat  advanced  housekeepers, 
and  our  dwelling  was  first  furnished  by  her  father,  in  the 
old-fashioned  jog-trot  days  when  furniture  was  made  with 
a  view  to  its  lasting  from  generation  to  generation.  Every 
thing  was  strong  and  comfortable,  —  heavy  mahogany, 


4  HOUSE    AND    HOME    PAPERS 

guiltless  of  the  modern  device  of  veneering,  and  hewed  out 
with  a  square  solidity  which  had  not  an  idea  of  change.  It 
was,  so  to  speak,  a  sort  of  granite  foundation  of  the  house 
hold  structure.  Then  we  commenced  housekeeping  with 
the  full  idea  that  our  house  was  a  thing  to  he  lived  in,  and 
that  furniture  was  made  to  be  used.  That  most  sensible 
of  women,  Mrs.  Crowfield,  agreed  fully  with  me  that  in 
our  house  there  was  to  be  nothing  too  good  for  ourselves,  — 
no  room  shut  up  in  holiday  attire  to  be  enjoyed  by  strangers 
for  three  or  four  days  in  the  year,  while  we  lived  in  holes 
and  corners ;  no  best  parlor  from  which  we  were  to  be 
excluded ;  no  silver  plate  to  be  kept  in  the  safe  in  the 
bank,  and  brought  home  only  in  case  of  a  grand  festival, 
while  our  daily  meals  were  served  with  dingy  Britannia. 
"  Strike  a  broad,  plain  average,"  I  said  to  my  wife  ;  "have 
everything  abundant,  serviceable,  and  give  all  our  friends 
exactly  what  we  have  ourselves,  no  better  and  no  worse ; " 
and  my  wife  smiled  approval  on  my  sentiment. 

Smile  ?  she  did  more  than  smile.  My  wife  resembles  one 
of  those  convex  mirrors  I  have  sometimes  seen.  Every  idea 
I  threw  out,  plain  and  simple,  she  reflected  back  upon  me 
in  a  thousand  little  glitters  and  twinkles  of  her  own ;  she 
made  my  crude  conceptions  come  back  to  me  in  such  per 
fectly  dazzling  performances  that  I  hardly  recognized  them. 
My  mind  warms  up  when  I  think  what  a  home  that  wo 
man  made  of  our  house  from  the  very  first  day  she  moved 
into  it.  The  great,  large,  airy  parlor,  with  its  ample  bow- 
window,  when  she  had  arranged  it,  seemed  a  perfect  trap  to 
catch  sunbeams.  There  was  none  of  that  discouraging  trim- 
ness  and  newness  that  often  repel  a  man's  bachelor  friends 
after  the  first  call,  and  make  them  feel,  "  Oh,  well,  one 
cannot  go  in  at  Crowfield's  now,  unless  one  is  dressed  ;  one 
might  put  them  out."  The  first  thing  our  parlor  said  to 
any  one  was,  that  we  were  not  people  to  be  put  out,  that  we 
were  widespread,  easy-going,  and  jolly  folk.  Even  if  Tom 


THE   RAVAGES   OF  A  CARPET  5 

Brown  brought  in  Ponto  and  his  shooting-bag,  there  was 
nothing  in  that  parlor  to  strike  terror  into  man  and  dog  ; 
for  it  was  written  on  the  face  of  things  that  everybody 
there  was  to  do  just  as  he  or  she  pleased.  There  were  my 
books  and  my  writing-table  spread  out  with  all  its  miscella 
neous  confusion  of  papers  on  one  side  of  the  fireplace,  and 
there  were  my  wife's  great,  ample  sofa  and  work-table  on 
the  other  ;  there  I  wrote  my  articles  for  the  u  North  Ameri 
can  ;  "  and  there  she  turned  and  ripped  and  altered  her 
dresses ;  and  there  lay  crochet  and  knitting  and  embroidery 
side  by  side  with  a  weekly  basket  of  family  mending,  and 
in  neighborly  contiguity  with  the  last  book  of  the  season, 
which  my  wife  turned  over  as  she  took  her  after-dinner 
lounge  on  the  sofa.  And  in  the  bow-window  were  canaries 
always  singing,  and  a  great  stand  of  plants  always  fresh  and 
blooming,  and  ivy  which  grew  and  clambered  and  twined 
about  the  pictures.  Best  of  all,  there  was  in  our  parlor 
that  household  altar,  the  blazing  wood  fire,  whose  whole 
some,  hearty  crackle  is  the  truest  household  inspiration.  I 
quite  agree  with  one  celebrated  American  author  who  holds 
that  an  open  fireplace  is  an  altar  of  patriotism.  Would  our 
Revolutionary  fathers  have  gone  barefooted  and  bleeding 
over  snows  to  defend  air-tight  stoves  and  cooking-ranges  ? 
I  trow  not.  It  was  the  memory  of  the  great  open  kitchen- 
fire,  with  its  back  log  and  fore  stick  of  cord-wood,  its  roaring, 
hilarious  voice  of  invitation,  its  dancing  tongues  of  flame, 
that  called  to  them  through  the  snows  of  that  dreadful 
winter  to  keep  up  their  courage,  that  made  their  hearts 
warm  and  bright  with  a  thousand  reflected  memories.  Our 
neighbors  said  that  it  was  delightful  to  sit  by  our  fire,  — 
but  then,  for  their  part,  they  could  not  afford  it,  wood  was 
so  ruinously  dear,  and  all  that.  Most  of  these  people  could 
not,  for  the  simple  reason  that  they  felt  compelled,  in  order 
to  maintain  the  family  dignity,  to  keep  up  a  parlor  with 
great  pomp  and  circumstance  of  upholstery,  where  they  sat 


6  HOUSE    AND   HOME  PAPERS 

only  on  dress  occasions,  and  of  course  the  wood  fire  was  out 
of  the  question. 

When  children  began  to  make  their  appearance  in  our 
establishment,  my  wife,  like  a  well-conducted  housekeeper, 
had  the  best  of  nursery  arrangements,  —  a  room  all  warmed, 
lighted,  and  ventilated,  and  abounding  in  every  proper 
resource  of  amusement  to  the  rising  race  ;  but  it  was 
astonishing  to  see  how,  notwithstanding  this,  the  centripetal 
attraction  drew  every  pair  of  little  pattering  feet  to  our 
parlor. 

"  My  dear,  why  don't  you  take  your  blocks  upstairs  ?  " 

"  I  want  to  be  where  oo  are,"  said  with  a  piteous  under 
lip,  was  generally  a  most  convincing  answer. 

Then  the  small  people  could  not  be  disabused  of  the  idea 
that  certain  chief  treasures  of  their  own  would  be  safer 
under  papa's  writing-table  or  mamma's  sofa  than  in  the 
safest  closet  of  their  domains.  My  writing-table  was  dock 
yard  for  Arthur's  new  ship,  and  stable  for  little  Tom's 
pepper-and-salt-colored  pony,  and  carriage-house  for  Charley's 
new  wagon,  while  whole  armies  of  paper  dolls  kept  house  in 
the  recess  behind  mamma's  sofa. 

And  then,  in  due  time,  came  the  tribe  of  pets  who 
followed  the  little  ones  and  rejoiced  in  the  blaze  of  the  fire 
light.  The  boys  had  a  splendid  Newfoundland,  which, 
knowing  our  weakness,  we  warned  them  with  awful  gravity 
was  never  to  be  a  parlor  dog ;  but  somehow,  what  with 
little  beggings  and  pleadings  on  the  part  of  Arthur  and  Tom, 
and  the  piteous  melancholy  with  which  Hover  would  look 
through  the  window-panes  when  shut  out  from  the  blazing 
warmth  into  the  dark,  cold  veranda,  it  at  last  came  to  pass 
that  Rover  gained  a  regular  corner  at  the  hearth,  a  regular 
status  in  every  family  convocation.  And  then  came  a  little 
black-and-tan  English  terrier  for  the  girls  ;  and  then  a  fleecy 
poodle,  who  established  himself  on  the  corner  of  my  wife's 
sofa  ;  and  for  each  of  these  some  little  voice  pleaded,  and 


THE   RAVAGES   OF  A   CARPET  7 

some  little  heart  would  be  so  near  broken  at  any  slight  that 
my  wife  and  I  resigned  ourselves  to  live  in  a  menagerie,  the 
more  so  as  we  were  obliged  to  confess  a  lurking  weakness 
towards  these  four-footed  children  ourselves. 

So  we  grew  and  flourished  together,  —  children,  dogs, 
birds,  flowers,  and  all ;  and  although  my  wife  often,  in 
paroxysms  of  housewifeliness  to  which  the  best  of  women 
are  subject,  would  declare  that  we  never  were  fit  to  be 
seen,  yet  I  comforted  her  with  the  reflection  that  there 
were  few  people  whose  friends  seemed  to  consider  them 
better  worth  seeing,  judging  by  the  stream  of  visitors  and 
loungers  which  was  always  setting  towards  our  parlor. 
People  seemed  to  find  it  good  to  be  there ;  they  said  it  was 
somehow  homelike  and  pleasant,  and  that  there  was  a  kind 
of  charm  about  it  that  made  it  easy  to  talk  and  easy  to 
live ;  and  as  my  girls  and  boys  grew  up,  there  seemed  al 
ways  to  be  some  merry  doing  or  other  going  on  there. 
Arty  and  Tom  brought  home  their  college  friends,  who 
straightway  took  root  there  and  seemed  to  fancy  themselves 
a  part  of  us.  We  had  no  reception-rooms  apart,  where  the 
girls  were  to  receive  young  gentlemen ;  all  the  courting  and 
flirting  that  were  to  be  done  had  for  their  arena  the  ample 
variety  of  surface  presented  by  our  parlor,  which,  with  sofas 
and  screens  and  lounges  and  recesses,  and  writing  and  work 
tables,  disposed  here  and  there,  and  the  genuine  laisser 
alter  of  the  whole  menage,  seemed,  on  the  whole,  to  have 
offered  ample  advantages  enough ;  for  at  the  time  I  write 
of,  two  daughters  were  already  established  in  marriage,  while 
my  youngest  was  busy,  as  yet,  in  performing  that  little 
domestic  ballet  of  the  cat  with  the  mouse,  in  the  case  of  a 
most  submissive  youth  of  the  neighborhood. 

All  this  time  our  parlor  furniture,  though  of  that  grani 
tic  formation  I  have  indicated,  began  to  show  marks  of  that 
decay  to  which  things  sublunary  are  liable.  I  cannot  say 
that  I  dislike  this  look  in  a  room.  Take  a  fine,  ample, 


8  HOUSE  AND   HOME    PAPERS 

hospitable  apartment,  where  all  things,  freely  and  gener 
ously  used,  softly  and  indefinably  grow  old  together,  there 
is  a  sort  of  mellow  tone  and  keeping  which  pleases  my  eye. 
What  if  the  seams  of  the  great  inviting  armchair,  where  so 
many  friends  have  sat  and  lounged,  do  grow  white  ?  What, 
in  fact,  if  some  easy  couch  has  an  undeniable  hole  worn  in 
its  friendly  cover  ?  I  regard  with  tenderness  even  these 
mortal  weaknesses  of  these  servants  and  witnesses  of  our 
good  times  and  social  fellowship.  ISTo  vulgar  touch  wore 
them ;  they  may  be  called,  rather,  the  marks  and  indenta 
tions  which  the  glittering  in  and  out  of  the  tide  of  social 
happiness  has  worn  in  the  rocks  of  our  strand.  I  would 
no  more  disturb  the  gradual  toning-down  and  aging  of  a 
well-used  set  of  furniture  by  smart  improvements  than  I 
would  have  a  modern  dauber  paint  in  emendations  in  a  fine 
old  picture. 

So  we  men  reason,  but  women  do  not  always  think  as 
we  do.  There  is  a  virulent  demon  of  housekeeping  not 
wholly  cast  out  in  the  best  of  them,  and  which  often  breaks 
out  in  unguarded  moments.  In  fact  Miss  Marianne,  being 
on  the  lookout  for  furniture  wherewith  to  begin  a  new 
establishment,  and  Jenny,  who  had  accompanied  her  in  her 
peregrinations,  had  more  than  once  thrown  out  little  dispar 
aging  remarks  on  the  time-worn  appearance  of  our  estab 
lishment,  suggesting  comparison  with  those  of  more  modern 
furnished  rooms. 

"  It  is  positively  scandalous,  the  way  our  furniture  looks," 
I  one  day  heard  one  of  them  declaring  to  her  mother;  "and 
this  old  rag  of  a  carpet !  " 

My  feelings  were  hurt,  not  the  less  so  that  I  knew  that 
the  large  cloth  which  covered  the  middle  of  the  floor,  and 
which  the  women  call  a  booking,  had  been  bought  and 
nailed  down  there,  after  a  solemn  family  council,  as  the 
best  means  of  concealing  the  too  evident  darns  which  years 
of  good  cheer  had  made  needful  in  our  stanch  old  house- 


THE   EAVAGES   OF   A   CAKPET  9 

hold  friend,  the  three-ply  carpet,  made  in  those  days  when 
to  be  a  three-ply  was  a  pledge  of  continuance  and  service. 

Well,  it  was  a  joyous  and  bustling  day  when,  after  one 
of  those  domestic  whirlwinds  which  the  women  are  fond  of 
denominating  house-cleaning,  the  new  Brussels  carpet  was 
at  length  brought  in  and  nailed  down,  and  its  beauty 
praised  from  mouth  to  mouth.  Our  old  friends  called  in 
and  admired,  and  all  seemed  to  be  well,  except  that  I  had 
that  light  and  delicate  presage  of  changes  to  come  which 
indefinitely  brooded  over  me. 

The  first  premonitory  symptom  was  the  look  of  appre 
hensive  suspicion  with  which  the  female  senate  regarded  the 
genial  sunbeams  that  had  always  glorified  our  bow-window. 

"  This  house  ought  to  have  inside  blinds,"  said  Mari 
anne,  with  all  the  confident  decision  of  youth ;  "  this  carpet 
will  be  ruined  if  that  sun  is  allowed  to  come  in  like 
that." 

"  And  that  dirty  little  canary  must  really  be  hung  in  the 
kitchen,"  said  Jenny  ;  "  he  always  did  make  such  a  litter, 
scattering  his  seed  chippings  about ;  and  he  never  takes 
his  bath  without  flirting  out  some  water.  And,  mamma,  it 
appears  to  me  it  will  never  do  to  have  the  plants  here. 
Plants  are  always  either  leaking  through  the  pots  upon  the 
carpet,  or  scattering  bits  of  blossoms  and  dead  leaves,  or 
some  accident  upsets  or  breaks  a  pot.  It  was  no  matter, 
you  know,  when  we  had  the  old  carpet ;  but  this  we  really 
want  to  have  kept  nice." 

Mamma  stood  her  ground  for  the  plants,  —  darlings  of 
her  heart  for  many  a  year,  —  but  temporized,  and  showed 
that  disposition  towards  compromise  which  is  most  inviting 
to  aggression. 

I  confess  I  trembled ;  for,  of  all  radicals  on  earth,  none 
are  to  be  compared  to  females  that  have  once  in  hand  a 
course  of  domestic  innovation  and  reform.  The  sacred  fire, 
the  divine  furor,  burns  in  their  bosoms ;  they  become  perfect 


10  HOUSE  AND  HOME  PAPERS 

Pythonesses,  and  every  chair  they  sit  on  assumes  the  magic 
properties  of  the  tripod.  Hence  the  dismay  that  lodges  in 
the  bosoms  of  us  males  at  the  fateful  spring  and  autumn 
seasons  denominated  house-cleaning.  Who  can  say  whither 
the  awful  gods,  the  prophetic  fates,  may  drive  our  fair 
household  divinities  ;  what  sins  of  ours  may  be  brought  to 
light ;  what  indulgences  and  compliances,  which  uninspired 
woman  has  granted  in  her  ordinary  mortal  hours,  may  be 
torn  from  us  ?  He  who  has  been  allowed  to  keep  a  pair  of 
pet  slippers  in  a  concealed  corner,  and  by  the  fireside  in 
dulged  with  a  chair  which  he  might  ad  libitum  fill  with 
all  sorts  of  pamphlets  and  miscellaneous  literature,  suddenly 
finds  himself  reformed  out  of  knowledge,  his  pamphlets 
tucked  away  into  pigeonholes  and  corners,  and  his  slippers 
put  in  their  place  in  the  hall,  with,  perhaps,  a  brisk  insinu 
ation  about  the  shocking  dust  and  disorder  that  men  will 
tolerate. 

The  fact  was,  that  the  very  first  night  after  the  advent 
of  the  new  carpet  I  had  a  prophetic  dream.  Among  our 
treasures  of  art  was  a  little  etching,  by  an  English  artist 
friend,  the  subject  of  which  was  the  gambols  of  the  house 
hold  fairies  in  a  baronial  library  after  the  household  were 
in  bed.  The  little  people  are  represented  in  every  attitude 
of  frolic  enjoyment.  Some  escalade  the  great  armchair, 
and  look  down  from  its  top  as  from  a  domestic  Mont  Blanc ; 
some  climb  about  the  bellows ;  some  scale  the  shaft  of  the 
shovel ;  while  some,  forming  in  magic  ring,  dance  festively 
on  the  yet  glowing  hearth.  Tiny  troops  promenade  the 
writing-table.  One  perches  himself  quaintly  on  the  top  of 
the  inkstand,  and  holds  colloquy  with  another  who  sits 
cross-legged  on  a  paper  weight,  while  a  companion  looks 
down  on  them  from  the  top  of  the  sandbox.  It  was  an 
ingenious  little  device,  and  gave  me  the  idea,  which  I  often 
expressed  to  my  wife,  that  much  of  the  peculiar  feeling  of 
security,  composure,  and  enjoyment  which  seems  to  be  the 


THE   RAVAGES   OF   A   CARPET  11 

atmosphere  of  some  rooms  and  houses  came  from  the  unsus 
pected  presence  of  these  little  people,  the  household  fairies, 
so  that  the  belief  in  their  existence  became  a  solemn  article 
of  faith  with  me. 

Accordingly,  that  evening,  after  the  installation  of  the 
carpet,  when  my  wife  and  daughters  had  gone  to  bed,  as  I 
sat  with  my  slippered  feet  before  the  last  coals  of  the  fire, 
I  fell  asleep  in  my  chair,  and,  lo !  my  own  parlor  presented 
to  my  eye  a  scene  of  busy  life.  The  little  people  in  green 
were  tripping  to  and  fro,  but  in  great  confusion.  Evidently 
something  was  wrong  among  them ;  for  they  were  fussing 
and  chattering  with  each  other,  as  if  preparatory  to  a  general 
movement.  In  the  region  of  the  bow-window  I  observed  a 
tribe  of  them  standing  with  tiny  valises  and  carpetbags  in 
their  hands,  as  though  about  to  depart  on  a  journey.  On 
my  writing-table  another  set  stood  around  my  inkstand  and 
pen-rack,  who,  pointing  to  those  on  the  floor,  seemed  to 
debate  some  question  among  themselves ;  while  others  of 
them  appeared  to  be  collecting  and  packing  away  in  tiny 
trunks  certain  fairy  treasures,  preparatory  to  a  general  de 
parture.  When  I  looked  at  the  social  hearth,  at  my  wife's 
sofa  and  work-basket,  I  saw  similar  appearances  of  dissatis 
faction  and  confusion.  It  was  evident  that  the  household 
fairies  were  discussing  the  question  of  a  general  and  simul 
taneous  removal.  I  groaned  in  spirit,  and,  stretching  out 
my  hand,  began  a  conciliatory  address,  when  whisk  went 
the  whole  scene  from  before  my  eyes,  and  I  awaked  to 
behold  the  form  of  my  wife  asking  me  if  I  were  ill,  or  had 
had  the  nightmare,  that  I  groaned  so.  I  told  her  my  dream, 
and  we  laughed  at  it  together. 

"  We  must  give  way  to  the  girls  a  little,"  she  said.  "  It 
is  natural,  you  know,  that  they  should  wish  us  to  appear  a 
little  as  other  people  do.  The  fact  is,  our  parlor  is  some 
what  dilapidated  ;  think  how  many  years  we  have  lived  in 
it  without  an  article  of  new  furniture." 


12  HOUSE  AND  HOME  PAPERS 

"  I  hate  new  furniture/7  I  remarked,  in  the  bitterness  of 
my  soul.  "  I  hate  anything  new." 

My  wife  answered  me  discreetly,  according  to  approved 
principles  of  diplomacy.  I  was  right.  She  sympathized 
with  me.  At  the  same  time,  it  was  not  necessary,  she 
remarked,  that  we  should  keep  a  hole  in  our  sofa-cover  and 
armchair,  —  there  would  certainly  be  no  harm  in  sending 
them  to  the  upholsterer's  to  be  new-covered ;  she  did  n't 
much  mind,  for  her  part,  moving  her  plants  to  the  south 
back  room  ;  and  the  bird  would  do  well  enough  in  the 
kitchen  :  I  had  often  complained  of  him  for  singing  vocifer 
ously  when  I  was  reading  aloud. 

So  our  sofa  went  to  the  upholsterer's ;  but  the  uphol 
sterer  was  struck  with  such  horror  at  its  clumsy,  antiquated, 
unfashionable  appearance  that  he  felt  bound  to  make  repre 
sentations  to  my  wife  and  daughters  :  positively,  it  would 
be  better  for  them  to  get  a  new  one,  of  a  tempting  pattern 
which  he  showed  them,  than  to  try  to  do  anything  with 
that.  With  a  stitch  or  so  here  and  there  it  might  do  for  a 
basement  dining-room  ;  but,  for  a  parlor,  he  gave  it  as  his 
disinterested  opinion,  —  he  must  say,  if  the  case  were  his 
own,  he  should  get,  etc.,  etc.  In  short,  we  had  a  new  sofa 
and  new  chairs,  and  the  plants  and  the  birds  were  banished, 
and  some  dark-green  blinds  were  put  up  to  exclude  the  sun 
from  the  parlor,  and  the  blessed  luminary  was  allowed  there 
only  at  rare  intervals,  when  my  wife  and  daughters  were 
out  shopping,  and  I  acted  out  my  uncivilized  male  instincts 
by  pulling  up  every  shade  and  vivifying  the  apartment  as 
in  days  of  old. 

But  this  was  not  the  worst  of  it.  The  new  furniture 
and  new  carpet  formed  an  opposition  party  in  the  room.  I 
believe  in  my  heart  that  for  every  little  household  fairy 
that  went  out  with  the  dear  old  things  there  came  in  a  tribe 
of  discontented  brownies  with  the  new  ones.  These  little 
wretches  Avere  always  twitching  at  the  gowns  of  my  wife 


THE   RAVAGES   OF   A  CARPET  13 

and  daughters,  jogging  their  elbows,  and  suggesting  odious 
comparisons  between  the  smart  new  articles  and  what  re 
mained  of  the  old  ones.  They  disparaged  my  writing-table 
in  the  corner  ;  they  disparaged  the  old-fashioned  lounge  in 
the  other  corner,  which  had  been  the  maternal  throne  for 
years  ;  they  disparaged  the  work-table,  the  work-basket, 
with  constant  suggestions  of  how  such  things  as  these 
would  look  in  certain  well-kept  parlors  where  new-fashioned 
furniture  of  the  same  sort  as  ours  existed. 

"We  don't  have  any  parlor,"  said  Jenny  one  day.  "Our 
parlor  has  always  been  a  sort  of  log  cabin,  —  library,  study, 
nursery,  greenhouse,  all  combined.  We  never  have  had 
things  like  other  people.'7 

"  Yes,  and  this  open  fire  makes  such  a  dust ;  and  this 
carpet  is  one  that  shows  every  speck  of  dust ;  it  keeps  one 
always  on  the  watch." 

"  I  wonder  why  papa  never  had  a  study  to  himself  ;  I  'm 
sure  I  should  think  he  would  like  it  better  than  sitting  here 
among  us  all.  Now  there 's  the  great  south  room  off  the 
dining-room  ;  if  he  would  only  move  his  things  there  and 
have  his  open  fire,  we  could  then  close  up  the  fireplace  and 
put  lounges  in  the  recesses,  and  mamma  could  have  her 
things  in  the  nursery,  —  and  then  we  should  have  a  parlor 
fit  to  be  seen." 

I  overheard  all  this,  though  I  pretended  not  to,  —  the 
little  busy  chits  supposing  me  entirely  buried  in  the  recesses 
of  a  German  book  over  which  I  was  poring. 

There  are  certain  crises  in  a  man's  life  when  the  female 
element  in  his  household  asserts  itself  in  dominant  forms 
that  seem  to  threaten  to  overwhelm  him.  The  fair  crea 
tures,  who  in  most  matters  have  depended  on  his  judgment, 
evidently  look  upon  him  at  these  seasons  as  only  a  forlorn, 
incapable  male  creature,  to  be  cajoled  and  flattered  and  per 
suaded  out  of  his  native  blindness  and  absurdity  into  the 
fairyland  of  their  wishes. 


14  HOUSE   AND   HOME   PAPERS 

"Of  course,  mamma,'7  said  the  busy  voices,  "men  can't 
understand  such  things.  What  can  men  know  of  house 
keeping,  and  how  things  ought  to  look  ?  Papa  never  goes 
into  company  ;  he  don't  know  and  don't  care  how  the  world 
is  doing,  and  don't  see  that  nobody  now  is  living  as  we 
do." 

"Aha,  my  little  mistresses,  are  you  there?"  I  thought; 
and  I  mentally  resolved  on  opposing  a  great  force  of  what 
our  politicians  call  backbone  to  this  pretty  domestic  con 
spiracy. 

"  When  you  get  my  writing-table  out  of  this  corner,  my 
pretty  dears,  I  'd  thank  you  to  let  me  know  it." 

Thus  spake  I  in  my  blindness,  fool  that  I  was.  Jupiter 
might  as  soon  keep  awake  when  Juno  came  in  best  bib  and 
tucker,  and  with  the  cestus  of  Venus,  to  get  him  to  sleep. 
Poor  Slender  might  as  well  hope  to  get  the  better  of  pretty 
Mistress  Anne  Page  as  one  of  us  clumsy-footed  men  might 
endeavor  to  escape  from  the  tangled  labyrinth  of  female 
wiles. 

In  short,  in  less  than  a  year  it  was  all  done,  without  any 
quarrel,  any  noise,  any  violence,  —  done,  I  scarce  knew 
when  or  how,  but  with  the  utmost  deference  to  my  wishes, 
the  most  amiable  hopes  that  I  would  not  put  myself  out, 
the  most  sincere  protestations  that,  if  I  liked  it  better  as  it 
was,  my  goddesses  would  give  up  and  acquiesce.  In  fact  I 
seemed  to  do  it  of  myself,  constrained  thereto  by  what  the 
Emperor  Napoleon  has  so  happily  called  the  logic  of  events, 
—  that  old,  well-known  logic  by  which  the  man  who  has 
once  said  A  must  say  B,  and  he  who  has  said  B  must  say 
the  whole  alphabet.  In  a  year  we  had  a  parlor  with  two 
lounges  in  decorous  recesses,  a  fashionable  sofa,  and  six 
chairs  and  a  looking-glass,  and  a  grate  always  shut  up,  and 
a  hole  in  the  floor  which  kept  the  parlor  warm,  and  great, 
heavy  curtains  that  kept  out  all  the  light  that  was  not 
already  excluded  by  the  green  shades. 


THE   RAVAGES   OF  A   CARPET  15 

It  was  as  proper  and  orderly  a  parlor  as  those  of  our 
most  fashionable  neighbors ;  and  when  our  friends  called, 
we  took  them  stumbling  into  its  darkened  solitude,  and 
opened  a  faint  crack  in  one  of  the  window-shades,  and  came 
down  in  our  best  clothes  and  talked  with  them  there.  Our 
old  friends  rebelled  at  this,  and  asked  what  they  had  done 
to  be  treated  so,  and  complained  so  bitterly  that  gradually 
we  let  them  into  the  secret  that  there  was  a  great  south 
room,  which  I  had  taken  for  my  study,  where  we  all  sat ; 
where  the  old  carpet  was  down ;  where  the  sun  shone  in  at 
the  great  window ;  where  my  wife's  plants  flourished,  and 
the  canary-bird  sang,  and  my  wife  had  her  sofa  in  the  cor 
ner,  and  the  old  brass  andirons  glistened,  and  the  wood  fire 
crackled,  —  in  short,  a  room  to  which  all  the  household 
fairies  had  emigrated. 

When  they  once  had  found  that  out,  it  was  difficult  to 
get  any  of  them  to  sit  in  our  parlor.  I  had  purposely 
christened  the  new  room  my  study,  that  I  might  stand  on 
my  rights  as  master  of  ceremonies  there,  though  I  opened 
wide  arms  of  welcome  to  any  who  chose  to  come.  So,  then, 
it  would  often  come  to  pass  that,  when  we  were  sitting 
round  the  fire  in  my  study  of  an  evening,  the  girls  would 
say, — 

"  Come,  what  do  we  always  stay  here  for  ?  Why  don't 
we  ever  sit  in  the  parlor  ?  " 

And  then  there  would  be  manifested  among  guests  and 
family  friends  a  general  unwillingness  to  move. 

"  Oh,  hang  it,  girls  !  "  would  Arthur  say  ;  "  the  parlor  is 
well  enough,  all  right ;  let  it  stay  as  it  is,  and  let  a  fellow 
stay  where  he  can  do  as  he  pleases  and  feels  at  home ;  "  and 
to  this  view  of  the  matter  would  respond  divers  of  the 
nice  young  bachelors  who  were  Arthur's  and  Tom's  sworn 
friends. 

In  fact  nobody  wanted  to  stay  in  our  parlor  now.  It 
was  a  cold,  correct,  accomplished  fact ;  the  household 


16  HOUSE  AND  HOME  PAPERS 

fairies  had  left  it,  —  and  when  the  fairies  leave  a  room,  no 
body  ever  feels  at  home  in  it.  No  pictures,  curtains,  no 
wealth  of  mirrors,  no  elegance  of  lounges,  can  in  the  least 
make  up  for  their  absence.  They  are  a  capricious  little 
set ;  there  are  rooms  where  they  will  not  stay,  and  rooms 
where  they  will ;  but  no  one  can  ever  have  a  good  time 
without  them. 

II 

HOMEKEEPING     VERSUS     HOUSEKEEPING 

I  am  a  frank-hearted  man,  as  perhaps  you  have  by  this 
time  perceived,  and  you  will  not,  therefore,  be  surprised  to 
know  that  I  read  my  last  article  on  the  carpet  to  my  wife 
and  the  girls  before  I  sent  it  to  the  "  Atlantic,"  and  we  had 
a  hearty  laugh  over  it  together.  My  wife  and  the  girls,  in 
fact,  felt  that  they  could  afford  to  laugh,  for  they  had  car 
ried  their  point,  their  reproach  among  women  was  taken 
away,  they  had  become  like  other  folks.  Like  other  folks 
they  had  a  parlor,  an  undeniable  best  parlor,  shut  up  and 
darkened,  with  all  proper  carpets,  curtains,  lounges, .  and 
marble-topped  tables,  too  good  for  human  nature's  daily 
food  ;  and  being  sustained  by  this  consciousness,  they  cheer 
fully  went  on  receiving  their  friends  in  the  study,  and 
having  good  times  in  the  old  free-and-easy  way  ;  for  did 
not  everybody  know  that  this  room  was  not  their  best  ? 
and  if  the  furniture  was  old-fashioned  and  a  little  the  worse 
for  antiquity,  was  it  not  certain  that  they  had  better,  which 
they  could  use  if  they  would  ? 

"  And  supposing  we  wanted  to  give  a  party,"  said  Jenny, 
"  how  nicely  our  parlor  would  light  up  !  Not  that  we  ever 
do  give  parties,  but  if  we  should,  —  and  for  a  wedding- 
reception,  you  know." 

I  felt  the  force  of  the  necessity  j   it  was  evident  that  the 


HOMEKEEPING  VERSUS   HOUSEKEEPING  17 

four  or  five  hundred  extra  which  we  had  expended  was  no 
more  than  such  solemn  possibilities  required. 

a  Now,  papa  thinks  we  have  been  foolish,"  said  Mari 
anne,  "  and  he  has  his  own  way  of  making  a  good  story  of 
it ;  but,  after  all,  I  desire  to  know  if  people  are  never  to 
get  a  new  carpet.  Must  we  keep  the  old  one  till  it  actually 
wears  to  tatters  ?  " 

This  is  a  specimen  of  the  reductio  ad  absurdum  which 
our  fair  antagonists  of  the  other  sex  are  fond  of  employing. 
They  strip  what  we  say  of  all  delicate  shadings  and  illusory 
phrases,  and  reduce  it  to  some  bare  question  of  fact,  with 
which  they  make  a  home-thrust  at  us. 

"  Yes,  that 's  it ;  are  people  never  to  get  a  new  carpet  ?  " 
echoed  Jenny. 

"  My  dears,"  I  replied,  "  it  is  a  fact  that  to  introduce 
anything  new  into  an  apartment  hallowed  by  many  home 
associations,  where  all  things  have  grown  old  together, 
requires  as  much  care  and  adroitness  as  for  an  architect  to 
restore  an  arch  or  niche  in  a  fine  old  ruin.  The  fault  of  our 
carpet  was  that  it  was  in  another  style  from  everything 
in  our  room,  and  made  everything  in  it  look  dilapidated. 
Its  colors,  material,  and  air  belonged  to  another  manner  of 
life,  and  were  a  constant  plea  for  alterations  ;  and  you  see 
it  actually  drove  out  and  expelled  the  whole  furniture  of 
the  room,  and  I  am  not  sure  yet  that  it  may  not  entail 
on  us  the  necessity  of  refurnishing  the  whole  house." 

"  My  dear  !  "  said  my  wife,  in  a  tone  of  remonstrance ; 
but  Jane  and  Marianne  laughed  and  colored. 

"  Confess,  now,"  said  I,  looking  at  them ;  "  have  you  not 
had  secret  designs  on  the  hall  and  stair  carpet  ?  " 

"  Now,  papa,  how  could  you  know  it  ?  I  only  said  to 
Marianne  that  to  have  Brussels  in  the  parlor  and  that  old 
mean-looking  ingrain  carpet  in  the  hall  did  not  seem  ex 
actly  the  thing  ;  and  in  fact  you  know,  mamma,  Messrs. 
Ketchem  &  Co.  showed  us  such  a  lovely  pattern,  designed 
to  harmonize  with  our  parlor  carpet." 


18  HOUSE    AND   HOME   PAPERS 

"  I  know  it,  girls,"  said  my  wife ;  "  but  you  know  I  said 
at  once  that  such  an  expense  was  not  to  be  thought  of." 

"  Now,  girls,"  said  I,  "  let  me  tell  you  a  story  I  heard 
once  of  a  very  sensible  old  New  England  minister,  who 
lived,  as  our  country  ministers  generally  do,  rather  near  to 
the  bone,  but  still  quite  contentedly.  It  was  in  the  days 
when  knee-breeches  and  long  stockings  were  worn,  and 
this  good  man  was  offered  a  present  of  a  very  nice  pair  of 
black  silk  hose.  He  declined,  saying  he  '  could  not  afford 
to  wear  them.'  ' 

"  (  Not  afford  it  ?  '  said  the  friend  ;  e  why,  I  give  them  to 
you.' 

"  '  Exactly  ;  but  it  will  cost  me  not  less  than  two  hundred 
dollars  to  take  them,  and  I  cannot  do  it.' 

"  '  How  is  that  ?  ' 

"  '  Why,  in  the  first  place,  I  shall  no  sooner  put  them  on 
than  my  wife  will  say,  "  My  dear,  you  must  have  a  new 
pair  of  knee-breeches,"  and  I  shall  get  them.  Then  my 
wife  will  say,  "  My  dear,  how  shabby  your  coat  is !  You 
must  have  a  new  one,"  and  I  shall  get  a  new  coat.  Then 
she  will  say,  "  Now,  my  dear,  that  hat  will  never  do,"  and 
then  I  shall  have  a  new  hat ;  and  then  I  shall  say,  "  My 
dear,  it  will  never  do  for  me  to  be  so  fine  and  you  to  wear 
your  old  gown,"  and  so  my  wife  will  get  a  new  gown ;  and 
then  the  new  gown  will  require  a  new  shawl  and  a  new 
bonnet ;  all  of  which  we  shall  not  feel  the  need  of  if  I  don't 
take  this  pair  of  silk  stockings,  for,  as  long  as  we  don't  see 
them,  our  old  things  seem  very  well  suited  to  each  other.'  ' 

The  girls  laughed  at  this  story,  and  I  then  added,  in  my 
most  determined  manner,  — 

"  But  I  must  warn  you,  girls,  that  I  have  compromised 
to  the  utmost  extent  of  my  power,  and  that  I  intend  to 
plant  myself  on  the  old  stair  carpet  in  determined  resistance. 
I  have  no  mind  to  be  forbidden  the  use  of  the  front  stairs, 
or  condemned  to  get  up  into  my  bedroom  by  a  private  lad- 


HOMEKEEPING   VERSUS   HOUSEKEEPING  19 

der,  as  I  should  be  immediately  if  there  were  a  new  carpet 
down." 

"  Why,  papa  !  " 

"  Would  it  not  be  so  ?  Can  the  sun  shine  in  the  parlor 
now  for  fear  of  fading  the  carpet  ?  Can  we  keep  a  fire 
there  for  fear  of  making  dust,  or  use  the  lounges  and  sofas 
for  fear  of  wearing  them  out  ?  If  you  got  a  new  entry  and 
stair  carpet,  as  I  said,  I  should  have  to  be  at  the  expense  of 
another  staircase  to  get  up  to  our  bedroom.'7 

"  Oh  no,  papa,"  said  Jane  innocently  ;  "  there  are  very 
pretty  druggets  now  for  covering  stair  carpets,  so  that  they 
can  be  used  without  hurting  them." 

"  Put  one  over  the  old  carpet,  then,"  said  I,  "  and  our 
acquaintance  will  never  know  but  it  is  a  new  one." 

All  the  female  senate  laughed  at  this  proposal,  and  said 
it  sounded  just  like  a  man. 

"  Well,"  said  I,  standing  up  resolutely  for  my  sex,  "  a 
man's  ideas  on  woman's  matters  may  be  worth  some  atten 
tion.  I  natter  myself  that  an  intelligent,  educated  man 
does  n't  think  upon  and  observe  with  interest  any  particular 
subject  for  years  of  his  life  without  gaining  some  ideas  re 
specting  it  that  are  good  for  something ;  at  all  events,  I 
have  written  another  article  for  the  '  Atlantic,'  which  I  will 
read  to  you." 

"  Well,  wait  one  minute,  papa,  till  we  get  our  work," 
said  the  girls,  who,  to  say  the  truth,  always  exhibit  a  flat 
tering  interest  in  anything  their  papa  writes,  and  who  have 
the  good  taste  never  to  interrupt  his  readings  with  any  con 
versations  in  an  undertone  on  cross-stitch  and  floss-silks,  as 
the  manner  of  some  is.  Hence  the  little  feminine  bustle  of 
arranging  all  these  matters  beforehand.  Jane,  or  Jenny,  as 
I  call  her  in  my  good-natured  moods,  put  on  a  fresh  clear 
stick  of  hickory,  of  that  species  denominated  shagbark, 
which  is  full  of  most  charming  slivers,  burning  with  such  a 
clear  flame,  and  emitting  such  a  delicious  perfume  in  burn- 


20  HOUSE  AND  HOME  TAPERS 

ing,  that  I  would  not  change  it  with  the  millionaire  who 
kept  up  his  fire  with  cinnamon. 

You  must  know,  my  dear  Mr.  Atlantic,  and  you,  my 
confidential  friends  of  the  reading  public,  that  there  is  a 
certain  magic  or  spiritualism  which  I  have  the  knack  of  in 
regard  to  these  mine  articles,  in  virtue  of  which  my  wife 
and  daughters  never  hear  or  see  the  little  personalities 
respecting  them  which  form  parts  of  my  papers.  By  a 
peculiar  arrangement  which  I  have  made  with  the  elves  of 
the  inkstand  and  the  familiar  spirits  of  the  quill,  a  sort  of 
glamour  falls  on  their  eyes  and  ears  when  I  am  reading,  or 
when  they  read  the  parts  personal  to  themselves  ;  other 
wise  their  sense  of  feminine  propriety  would  be  shocked  at 
the  free  way  in  which  they  and  their  most  internal  affairs 
are  confidentially  spoken  of  between  me  and  you,  0  loving 
readers. 

Thus,  in  an  undertone,  I  tell  you  that  my  little  Jenny, 
as  she  is  zealously  and  systematically  arranging  the  fire,  and 
trimly  whisking  every  untidy  particle  of  ashes  from  the 
hearth,  shows  in  every  movement  of  her  little  hands,  in  the 
cock  of  her  head,  in  the  knowing,  observing  glance  of  her 
eye,  and  in  all  her  energetic  movements,  that  her  small 
person  is  endued  and  made  up  of  the  very  expressed  essence 
of  housewifeliness,  —  she  is  the  very  attar,  not  of  roses,  but 
of  housekeeping.  Care-taking  and  thrift  and  neatness  are  a 
nature  to  her ;  she  is  as  dainty  and  delicate  in  her  person 
as  a  white  cat,  as  everlastingly  busy  as  a  bee ;  and  all  the 
most  needful  faculties  of  time,  weight,  measure,  and  pro 
portion  ought  to  be  fully  developed  in  her  skull,  if  there  is 
any  truth  in  phrenology.  Besides  all  this,  she  has  a  sort 
of  hard-grained  little  vein  of  common  sense,  against  which 
my  fanciful  conceptions  and  poetical  notions  are  apt  to  hit 
with  just  a  little  sharp  grating,  if  they  are  not  well  put. 
In  fact,  this  kind  of  woman  needs  carefully  to  be  idealized 
in  the  process  of  education,  or  she  will  stiffen  and  dry,  as 


HOMEKEEPING  VERSUS   HOUSEKEEPING  21 

she  grows  old,  into  a  veritable  household  Pharisee,  a  sort  of 
domestic  tyrant.  She  needs  to  be  trained  in  artistic  values 
and  artistic  weights  and  measures,  to  study  all  the  arts  and 
sciences  of  the  beautiful,  and  then  she  is  charming.  Most 
useful,  most  needful,  these  little  women  :  they  have  the 
centripetal  force  which  keeps  all  the  domestic  planets  from 
gyrating  and  frisking  in  unseemly  orbits,  and,  properly 
trained,  they  fill  a  house  with  the  beauty  of  order,  the  har 
mony  and  consistency  of  proportion,  the  melody  of  things 
moving  in  time  and  tune,  without  violating  the  graceful 
appearance  of  ease  which  Art  requires. 

So  I  had  an  eye  to  Jenny's  education  in  my  article  which 
I  unfolded  and  read,  and  which  was  entitled 

HOMEKEEPING    VERSUS    HOUSEKEEPING 

There  are  many  women  who  know  how  to  keep  a  house, 
but  there  are  but  few  that  know  how  to  keep  a  home.  To 
keep  a  house  may  seem  a  complicated  affair,  but  it  is  a  thing 
that  may  be  learned ;  it  lies  in  the  region  of  the  material ; 
in  the  region  of  weight,  measure,  color,  and  the  positive 
forces  of  life.  To  keep  a  home  lies  not  merely  in  the 
sphere  of  all  these,  but  it  takes  in  the  intellectual,  the 
social,  the  spiritual,  the  immortal. 

Here  the  hickory  stick  broke  in  two,  and  the  two  brands 
fell  controversially  out  and  apart  on  the  hearth,  scattering 
the  ashes  and  coals,  and  calling  for  Jenny  and  the  hearth- 
brush.  Your  wood  fire  has  this  foible,  that  it  needs  some 
thing  to  be  done  to  it  every  five  minutes ;  but,  after  all, 
these  little  interruptions  of  our  bright-faced  genius  are  like 
the  piquant  sallies  of  a  clever  friend,  —  they  do  not  strike 
us  as  unreasonable. 

When  Jenny  had  laid  down  her  brush  she  said,  — 
"  Seems   to   me,  papa,   you   are    beginning   to   soar  into 
metaphysics." 


22  HOUSE   AND   HOME    PAPERS 

"  Everything  in  creation  is  metaphysical  in  its  abstract 
terms,"  said  I,  with  a  look  calculated  to  reduce  her  to  a 
respectful  condition.  "  Everything  has  a  subjective  and  an 
objective  mode  of  presentation.'7 

"There  papa  goes  with  subjective  and  objective  !  "  said 
Marianne.  "  For  my  part,  I  never  can  remember  which  is 
which." 

"  I  remember,"  said  Jenny  ;  "  it 's  what  our  old  nurse 
used  to  call  internal  and  0w£-ternal,  —  I  always  remember 
by  that." 

"  Come,  my  dears,"  said  my  wife,  "  let  your  father  read  ; " 
so  I  went  on  as  follows :  — 

I  remember  in  my  bachelor  days  going  with  my  boon 
companion,  Bill  Carberry,  to  look  at  the  house  to  which  he 
was  in  a  few  weeks  to  introduce  his  bride.  Bill  was  a  gal 
lant,  free-hearted,  open-handed  fellow,  the  life  of  our  whole 
set,  and  we  felt  that  natural  aversion  to  losing  him  that 
bachelor  friends  would.  How  could  we  tell  under  what 
strange  aspects  he  might  look  forth  upon  us,  when  once 
he  had  passed  into  "  that  undiscovered  country  "  of  matri 
mony  ?  But  Bill  laughed  to  scorn  our  apprehensions. 

"I'll  tell  you  what,  Chris,"  he  said,  as  he  sprang  cheer 
ily  up  the  steps  and  unlocked  the  door  of  his  future  dwell 
ing,  "  do  you  know  what  I  chose  this  house  for  ?  Because 
it 's  a  social-looking  house.  Look  there,  now,"  he  said,  as 
he  ushered  me  into  a  pair  of  parlors,  —  "  look  at  those  long 
south  Avindows,  the  sun  lies  there  nearly  all  day  long ;  see 
what  a  capital  corner  there  is  for  a  lounging-chair  ;  fancy 
us,  Chris,  with  our  books  or  our  paper,  spread  out  loose 
and  easy,  and  Sophie  gliding  in  and  out  like  a  sunbeam. 
I  ?m  getting  poetical,  you  see.  Then,  did  you  ever  see  a 
better,  wider,  airier  dining-room  ?  What  capital  suppers 
and  things  we  '11  have  there  !  the  nicest  times,  —  every 
thing  free  and  easy,  you  know, — just  what  I've  always 


HOMEKEEPING   VERSUS    HOUSEKEEPING  23 

wanted  a  house  for.  I  tell  you,  Chris,  you  and  Tom  Innis 
shall  have  latch-keys  just  like  mine,  and  there  is  a  capital 
chamber  there  at  the  head  of  the  stairs,  so  that  you  can  be 
free  to  come  and  go.  And  here  now 's  the  library,  — fancy 
this  full  of  books  and  engravings  from  the  ceiling  to  the 
floor ;  here  you  shall  come  just  as  you  please  and  ask  no 
questions,  —  all  the  same  as  if  it  were  your  own,  you 
know.'7 

"  And  Sophie,  what  will  she  say  to  all  this  ?  " 

"  Why,  you  know  Sophie  is  a  prime  friend  to  both  of  you, 
and  a  capital  girl  to  keep  things  going.  Oh,  Sophie  '11  make 
a  house  of  this,  you  may  depend !  " 

A  day  or  two  after,  Bill  dragged  me  stumbling  over  boxes 
and  through  straw  and  wrappings  to  show  me  the  glories  of 
the  parlor  furniture,  with  which  he  seemed  pleased  as  a  child 
with  a  new  toy. 

"  Look  here,"  he  said  ;  "  see  these  chairs,  garnet-colored 
satin,  with  a  pattern  on  each  ;  well,  the  sofa  's  just  like  them, 
and  the  curtains  to  match,  and  the  carpets  made  for  the 
floor  with  centrepieces  and  borders.  I  never  saw  anything 
more  magnificent  in  my  life.  Sophie's  governor  furnishes 
the  house,  and  everything  is  to  be  A  No.  1,  and  all  that, 
you  see.  Messrs.  Curtain  &  Collamore  are  coming  to  make 
the  rooms  up,  and  her  mother  is  busy  as  a  bee  getting  us  in 
order." 

"  Why,  Bill,"  said  I,  "  you  are  going  to  be  lodged  like 
a  prince.  I  hope  you  '11  be  able  to  keep  it  up ;  but  law 
business  comes  in  rather  slowly  at  first,  old  fellow." 

"  Well,  you  know  it  is  n't  the  way  I  should  furnish,  if 
my  capital  was  the  one  to  cash  the  bills ;  but  then,  you  see, 
Sophie's  people  do  it,  and  let  them,  —  a  girl  does  n't  want 
to  come  down  out  of  the  style  she  has  always  lived  in." 

I  said  nothing,  but  had  an  oppressive  presentiment  that 
social  freedom  would  expire  in  that  house,  crushed  under  a 
weight  of  upholstery. 


24  HOUSE  AND  HOME  PAPERS 

But  there  came  in  due  time  the  wedding  and  the  wedding- 
reception,  and  we  all  went  to  see  Bill  in  his  new  house,  splen 
didly  lighted  up  and  complete  from  top  to  toe,  and  every 
body  said  what  a  lucky  fellow  he  was ;  but  that  was  about 
the  end  of  it,  so  far  as  our  visiting  was  concerned.  The 
running  in,  and  dropping  in,  and  keeping  latch-keys,  and 
making  informal  calls,  that  had  been  forespoken,  seemed 
about  as  likely  as  if  Bill  had  lodged  in  the  Tuileries. 

Sophie,  who  had  always  been  one  of  your  snapping, 
sparkling,  busy  sort  of  girls,  began  at  once  to  develop  her 
womanhood  and  show  her  principles,  and  was  as  different 
from  her  former  self  as  your  careworn,  mousing  old  cat  is 
from  your  rollicking,  frisky  kitten.  Not  but  that  Sophie 
was  a  good  girl.  She  had  a  capital  heart,  a  good,  true 
womanly  one,  and  was  loving  and  obliging  ;  but  still  she 
was  one  of  the  desperately  painstaking,  conscientious  sort  of 
women  whose  very  blood,  as  they  grow  older,  is  devoured 
with  anxiety,  and  she  came  of  a  race  of  women  in  whom 
housekeeping  was  more  than  an  art  or  a  science,  —  it  was, 
so  to  speak,  a  religion.  Sophie's  mother,  aunts,  and  grand 
mothers,  for  nameless  generations  back,  were  known  and 
celebrated  housekeepers.  They  might  have  been  genuine 
descendants  of  the  inhabitants  of  that  Hollandic  town  of 
Broeck,  celebrated  by  Washington  Irving,  where  the  cows' 
tails  are  kept  tied  up  with  unsullied  blue  ribbons,  and  the 
ends  of  the  fire-wood  are  painted  white.  He  relates  how  a 
celebrated  preacher,  visiting  this  town,  found  it  impossible 
to  draw  these  housewives  from  their  earthly  views  and  em 
ployments,  until  he  took  to  preaching  on  the  neatness  of  the 
celestial  city,  the  unsullied  crystal  of  its  walls  and  the  polish 
of  its  golden  pavement,  when  the  faces  of  all  the  housewives 
were  set  Zionward  at  once. 

Now  this  solemn  and  earnest  view  of  housekeeping  is 
onerous  enough  when  a  poor  girl  first  enters  on  the  care  of 
a  moderately  furnished  house,  where  the  articles  are  not  too 


HOMEKEEPING   VERSUS   HOUSEKEEPING  25 

expensive  to  be  reasonably  renewed  as  time  and  use  wear 
them  ;  but  it  is  infinitely  worse  when  a  cataract  of  splendid 
furniture  is  heaped  upon  her  care,  —  when  splendid  crystals 
cut  into  her  conscience,  and  mirrors  reflect  her  duties,  and 
moth  and  rust  stand  ever  ready  to  devour  and  sully  in  every 
room  and  passageway. 

Sophie  was  solemnly  warned  and  instructed  by  all  the 
mothers  and  aunts,  —  she  was  warned  of  moths,  warned  of 
cockroaches,  warned  of  flies,  warned  of  dust ;  all  the  articles 
of  furniture  had  their  covers,  made  of  cold  Holland  linen, 
in  which  they  looked  like  bodies  laid  out,  —  even  the  curtain 
tassels  had  each  its  little  shroud,  —  and  bundles  of  receipts, 
and  of  rites  and  ceremonies  necessary  for  the  preservation 
and  purification  and  care  of  all  these  articles,  were  stuffed 
into  the  poor  girl's  head,  before  guiltless  of  cares  as  the 
feathers  that  floated  above  it. 

Poor  Bill  found  very  soon  that  his  house  and  furniture 
were  to  be  kept  at  such  an  ideal  point  of  perfection  that  he 
needed  another  house  to  live  in,  —  for,  poor  fellow,  he  found 
the  difference  between  having  a  house  and  a  home.  It  was 
only  a  year  or  two  after  that  my  wife  and  I  started  our 
menage  on  very  different  principles,  and  Bill  would  of  ten  drop 
in  upon  us,  wistfully  lingering  in  the  cosy  armchair  between 
my  writing-table  and  my  wife's  sofa,  and  saying  with  a  sigh 
how  confoundedly  pleasant  things  looked  there,  —  so  plea 
sant  to  have  a  bright,  open  fire,  and  geraniums  and  roses  and 
birds,  and  all  that  sort  of  thing,  and  to  dare  to  stretch  out 
one's  legs  and  move  without  thinking  what  one  was  going 
to  hit.  "  Sophie  is  a  good  girl !  "  he  would  say,  "  and 
wants  to  have  everything  right,  but  you  see  they  won't  let 
her.  They  've  loaded  her  with  so  many  things  that  have 
to  be  kept  in  lavender  that  the  poor  girl  is  actually  getting 
thin  and  losing  her  health  ;  and  then,  you  see,  there  's 
Aunt  Zeruah,  she  mounts  guard  at  our  house,  and  keeps  up 
such  strict  police  regulations  that  a  fellow  can't  do  a  thing. 


26  HOUSE  AND  HOME  PAPERS 

The  parlors  are  splendid,  but  so  lonesome  and  dismal !  — 
not  a  ray  of  sunshine,  in  fact  not  a  ray  of  light,  except  when 
a  visitor  is  calling,  and  then  they  open  a  crack.  They  're 
afraid  of  flies,  and  yet,  dear  knows,  they  keep  every  looking- 
glass  and  picture-frame  muffled  to  its  throat  from  March  to 
December.  I  'd  like,  for  curiosity,  to  see  what  a  fly  would 
do  in  our  parlors !  " 

"  Well,"  said  I,  "  can't  you  have  some  little  family  sit 
ting-room  where  you  can  make  yourselves  cosy  ?  " 

"  Not  a  bit  of  it.  Sophie  and  Aunt  Zeruah  have  fixed 
their  throne  up  in  our  bedroom,  and  there  they  sit  all  day 
long,  except  at  calling-hours,  and  then  Sophie  dresses  her 
self  and  comes  down.  Aunt  Zeruah  insists  upon  it  that  the 
way  is  to  put  the  whole  house  in  order,  and  shut  all  the 
blinds,  and  sit  in  your  bedroom,  and  then,  she  says,  nothing 
gets  out  of  place ;  and  she  tells  poor  Sophie  the  most  hocus- 
pocus  stories  about  her  grandmothers  and  aunts,  who  always 
kept  everything  in  their  houses  so  that  they  could  go  and 
lay  their  hands  on  it  in  the  darkest  night.  I  '11  bet  they 
could  in  our  house.  From  end  to  end  it  is  kept  looking  as 
if  we  had  shut  it  up  and  gone  to  Europe,  —  not  a  book,  not 
a  paper,  not  a  glove,  or  any  trace  of  a  human  being  in  sight ; 
the  piano  shut  tight,  the  bookcases  shut  and  locked,  the 
engravings  locked  up,  all  the  drawers  and  closets  locked. 
Why,  if  I  want  to  take  a  fellow  into  the  library,  in  the  first 
place  it  smells  like  a  vault,  and  I  have  to  unbarricade  win 
dows,  and  unlock  and  rummage  for  half  an  hour  before  I 
can  get  at  anything  ;  and  I  know  Aunt  Zeruah  is  standing 
tiptoe  at  the  door,  ready  to  whip  everything  back  and  lock 
up  again.  A  fellow  can't  be  social,  or  take  any  comfort  in 
showing  his  books  and  pictures  that  way.  Then  there  's  our 
great,  light  dining-room,  with  its  sunny  south  windows,  — 
Aunt  Zeruah  got  us  out  of  that  early  in  April,  because  she 
said  the  flies  would  speck  the  frescoes  and  get  into  the  china- 
closet,  and  we  have  been  eating  in  a  little  dingy  den,  with 


HOMEKEEPING   VERSUS    HOUSEKEEPING  27 

a  window  looking  out  on  a  back  alley,  ever  since ;  and  Aunt 
Zeruah  says  that  now  the  dining-room  is  always  in  perfect 
order,  and  that  it  is  such  a  care  off  Sophie's  mind  that  I 
ought  to  be  willing  to  eat  down  cellar  to  the  end  of  the 
chapter.  Now,  you  see,  Chris,  my  position  is  a  delicate 
one,  because  Sophie's  folks  all  agree  that,  if  there  is  any 
thing  in  creation  that  is  ignorant  and  dreadful  and  must  n't 
be  allowed  his  way  anywhere,  it 's  e  a  man.'  Why,  you  'd 
think,  to  hear  Aunt  Zeruah  talk,  that  we  were  all  like  bulls 
in  a  china-shop,  ready  to  toss  and  tear  and  rend,  if  we  are 
not  kept  down  cellar  and  chained ;  and  she  worries  Sophie, 
and  Sophie's  mother  comes  in  and  worries,  and  if  I  try  to 
get  anything  done  differently  Sophie  cries,  and  says  she  don't 
know  what  to  do,  and  so  I  give  it  up.  Now,  if  I  want  to 
ask  a  few  of  our  set  in  sociably  to  dinner,  I  can't  have  them 
where  we  eat  down  cellar,  —  oh,  that  would  never  do  !  Aunt 
Zeruah  and  Sophie's  mother  and  the  whole  family  would 
think  the  family  honor  was  forever  ruined  and  undone.  We 
must  n't  ask  them  unless  we  open  the  dining-room,  and  have 
out  all  the  best  china,  and  get  the  silver  home  from  the 
bank ;  and  if  we  do  that,  Aunt  Zeruah  does  n't  sleep  for  a 
week  beforehand,  getting  ready  for  it,  and  for  a  week  after, 
getting  things  put  away  ;  and  then  she  tells  me  that,  in  So 
phie's  delicate  state,  it  really  is  abominable  for  me  to  increase 
her  cares,  and  so  I  invite  fellows  to  dine  with  me  at  Del- 
monico's,  and  then  Sophie  cries,  and  Sophie's  mother  says  it 
does  n't  look  respectable  for  a  family  man  to  be  dining  at  pub 
lic  places  ;  but,  hang  it,  a  fellow  wants  a  home  somewhere  !  " 
My  wife  soothed  the  chafed  spirit,  and  spake  comfortably 
unto  him,  and  told  him  that  he  knew  there  was  the  old 
lounging-chair  always  ready  for  him  at  our  fireside.  "  And 
you  know,"  she  said,  "  our  things  are  all  so  plain  that  we 
are  never  tempted  to  mount  any  guard  over  them ;  our  car 
pets  are  nothing,  and  therefore  we  let  the  sun  fade  them, 
and  live  on  the  sunshine  and  the  flowers." 


28  HOUSE  AND  HOME  PAPERS 

"That's  it,"  said  Bill  bitterly.  "Carpets  fading,— 
that 's  Aunt  Zeruah's  monomania.  These  women  think  that 
the  great  object  of  houses  is  to  keep  out  sunshine.  What  a 
fool  I  was  when  I  gloated  over  the  prospect  of  our  sunny 
south  windows  !  Why,  man,  there  are  three  distinct  sets  of 
fortifications  against  the  sunshine  in  those  windows :  first, 
outside  blinds ;  then  solid,  folding,  inside  shutters ;  and, 
lastly,  heavy,  thick,  lined  damask  curtains,  which  loop  quite 
down  to  the  floor.  What 's  the  use  of  my  pictures,  I  de 
sire  to  know  ?  They  are  hung  in  that  room,  and  it 's  a  reg 
ular  campaign  to  get  light  enough  to  see  what  they  are." 

"  But,  at  all  events,  you  can  light  them  up  with  gas  in 
the  evening." 

"  In  the  evening  !  Why,  do  you  know  my  wife  never 
wants  to  sit  there  in  the  evening  ?  She  says  she  has  so 
much  sewing  to  do  that  she  and  Aunt  Zeruah  must  sit  up 
in  the  bedroom,  because  it  wouldn't  do  to  bring  work  into 
the  parlor.  Didn't  you  know  that  ?  Don't  you  know  there 
must  n't  be  such  a  thing  as  a  bit  of  real  work  ever  seen  in 
a  parlor  ?  What  if  some  threads  should  drop  on  the  carpet  ? 
Aunt  Zeruah  would  have  to  open  all  the  fortifications  next 
day,  and  search  Jerusalem  with  candles  to  find  them.  No  ; 
in  the  evening  the  gas  is  lighted  at  half-cock,  you  know ; 
and  if  I  turn  it  up,  and  bring  in  my  newspapers  and  spread 
about  me,  and  pull  down  some  books  to  read,  I  can  feel  the 
nervousness  through  the  chamber  floor.  Aunt  Zeruah  looks 
in  at  eight,  and  at  a  quarter  past,  and  at  half  past,  and  at 
nine,  and  at  ten,  to  see  if  I  am  done,  so  that  she  may  fold 
up  the  papers  and  put  a  book  on  them,  and  lock  up  the  books 
in  their  cases.  Nobody  ever  comes  in  to  spend  an  evening. 
They  used  to  try  it  when  we  were  first  married,  but  I  believe 
the  uninhabited  appearance  of  our  parlors  discouraged  them. 
Everybody  has  stopped  coming  now,  and  Aunt  Zeruah  says 
1  it  is  such  a  comfort,  for  now  the  rooms  are  always  in  order. 
How  poor  Mrs.  Crowfield  lives,  with  her  house  such  a  thor- 


HOME  KEEPING   VERSUS   HOUSEKEEPING  29 

oughfare,  she  is  sure  she  can't  see.  Sophie  never  would  have 
strength  for  it ;  but  then,  to  be  sure,  some  folks  ain't  as 
particular  as  others.  Sophie  was  brought  up  in  a  family  of 
very  particular  housekeepers.'  ' 

My  wife  smiled,  with  that  calm,  easy,  amused  smile  that 
has  brightened  up  her  sofa  for  so  many  years. 

Bill  added  bitterly,  - 

"  Of  course,  I  could  n't  say  that  I  wished  the  whole  set 
and  system  of  housekeeping  women  at  the  —  what-'s-his- 
name  ?  —  because  Sophie  would  have  cried  for  a  week,  and 
been  utterly  forlorn  and  disconsolate.  I  know  it 's  not  the 
poor  girl's  fault ;  I  try  sometimes  to  reason  with  her,  but 
you  can't  reason  with  the  whole  of  your  wife's  family,  to 
the  third  and  fourth  generation  backwards  ;  but  I  'm  sure 
it 's  hurting  her  health,  —  wearing  her  out.  Why,  you 
know  Sophie  used  to  be  the  life  of  our  set ;  and  now  she 
really  seems  eaten  up  with  care  from  morning  to  night, 
there  are  so  many  things  in  the  house  that  something  dread 
ful  is  happening  to  all  the  while,  and  the  servants  we  get 
are  so  clumsy.  Why,  when  I  sit  with  Sophie  and  Aunt 
Zeruah,  it 's  nothing  but  a  constant  string  of  complaints 
about  the  girls  in  the  kitchen.  We  keep  changing  our  ser 
vants  all  the  time,  and  they  break  and  destroy  so  that  now 
we  are  turned  out  of  the  use  of  all  our  things.  We  not 
only  eat  in  the  basement,  but  all  our  pretty  table-things  are 
put  away,  and  we  have  all  the  cracked  plates  and  cracked 
tumblers  and  cracked  teacups  and  old  buck-handled  knives 
that  can  be  raised  out  of  chaos.  I  could  use  these  things 
and  be  merry  if  I  did  n't  know  we  had  better  ones ;  and 
I  can't  help  wondering  whether  there  is  n't  some  way  that 
our  table  could  be  set  to  look  like  a  gentleman's  table ;  but 
Aunt  Zeruah  says  that  '  it  would  cost  thousands,  and  what 
difference  does  it  make  as  long  as  nobody  sees  it  but  us  ?  ' 
You  see,  there  is  no  medium  in  her  mind  between  china 
and  crystal  and  cracked  earthenware.  Well,  I  'm  wonder- 


30  HOUSE  AND  HOME  PAFEKS 

ing  how  all  these  laws  of  the  Medes  and  Persians  are  going 
to  work  when  the  children  come  along.  I  'm  in  hopes  the 
children  will  soften  off  the  old  folks,  and  make  the  house 
more  habitable." 

Well,  children  did  come,  a  good  many  of  them,  in  time. 
There  was  Tom,  a  broad-shouldered,  chubby -cheeked,  active, 
hilarious  son  of  mischief,  born  in  the  very  image  of  his 
father  ;  and  there  was  Charlie,  and  Jim,  and  Louisa,  and 
Sophie  the  second,  and  Frank,  —  and  a  better,  brighter, 
more  joy-giving  household,  as  far  as  temperament  and  na 
ture  were  concerned,  never  existed. 

But  their  whole  childhood  was  a  long  battle,  —  children 
versus  furniture,  and  furniture  always  carried  the  day.  The 
first  step  of  the  housekeeping  powers  was  to  choose  the 
least  agreeable  and  least  available  room  in  the  house  for  the 
children's  nursery,  and  to  fit  it  up  with  all  the  old,  cracked, 
rickety  furniture  a  neighboring  auction-shop  could  afford, 
and  then  to  keep  them  in  it.  Now  everybody  knows  that 
to  bring  up  children  to  be  upright,  true,  generous,  and  re 
ligious  needs  so  much  discipline,  so  much  restraint  and  cor 
rection,  and  so  many  rules  and  regulations,  that  it  is  all 
that  the  parents  can  carry  out,  and  all  the  children  can  bear. 
There  is  only  a  certain  amount  of  the  vital  force  for  parents 
or  children  to  use  in  this  business  of  education,  and  one 
must  choose  what  it  shall  be  used  for.  The  Aunt  Zeruah 
faction  chose  to  use  it  for  keeping  the  house  and  furniture, 
and  the  children's  education  proceeded  accordingly.  The 
rules  of  right  and  wrong  of  which  they  heard  most  fre 
quently  were  all  of  this  sort :  Naughty  children  were  those 
who  went  up  the  front  stairs,  or  sat  on  the  best  sofa,  or  fin 
gered  any  of  the  books  in  the  library,  or  got  out  one  of  the 
best  teacups,  or  drank  out  of  the  cut-glass  goblets. 

Why  did  they  ever  want  to  do  it  ?  If  there  ever  is  a 
forbidden  fruit  in  an  Eden,  will  not  our  young  Adams  and 
Eves  risk  soul  and  body  to  find  out  how  it  tastes  ?  Little 


HOMEKEEPING   VERSUS    HOUSEKEEPING  31 

Tom,  the  oldest  boy,  had  the  courage  and  enterprise  and 
perseverance  of  a  Captain  Parry  or  Dr.  Kane,  and  he  used 
them  all  in  voyages  of  discovery  to  forbidden  grounds.  He 
stole  Aunt  Zeruah's  keys,  unlocked  her  cupboards  and 
closets,  saw,  handled,  and  tasted  everything  for  himself, 
and  gloried  in  his  sins. 

"Don't  you  know,  Tom,"  said  the  nurse  to  him  once, 
"  if  you  are  so  noisy  and  rude,  you  '11  disturb  your  dear 
mamma?  She's  sick,  and  she  may  die,  if  you're  not 
careful." 

"  Will  she  die  ?  "  says  Tom  gravely. 

"  Why,  she  may." 

"  Then,"  said  Tom,  turning  on  his  heel,  —  "  then  I  '11 
go  up  the  front  stairs." 

As  soon  as  ever  the  little  rebel  was  old  enough,  he  was 
sent  away  to  boarding-school,  and  then  there  was  never  found 
a  time  when  it  was  convenient  to  have  him  come  home  again. 
He  could  not  come  in  the  spring,  for  then  they  were  house- 
cleaning,  nor  in  the  autumn,  because  then  they  were  house- 
cleaning  ;  and  so  he  spent  his  vacations  at  school,  unless,  by 
good  luck,  a  companion  who  was  so  fortunate  as  to  have  a 
home  invited  him  there.  His  associations,  associates,  habits, 
principles,  were  as  little  known  to  his  mother  as  if  she  had 
sent  him  to  China.  Aunt  Zeruah  used  to  congratulate  her 
self  on  the  rest  there  was  at  home,  now  he  was  gone,  and 
say  she  was  only  living  in  hopes  of  the  time  when  Charlie 
and  Jim  would  be  big  enough  to  send  away,  too ;  and  mean 
while  Charlie  and  Jim,  turned  out  of  the  charmed  circle 
which  should  hold  growing  boys  to  the  father's  and  mother's 
side,  detesting  the  dingy,  lonely  playroom,  used  to  run  the 
city  streets,  and  hang  round  the  railroad  depots  or  docks. 
Parents  may  depend  upon  it  that,  if  they  do  not  make  an 
attractive  resort  for  their  boys,  Satan  will.  There  are  places 
enough,  kept  warm  and  light  and  bright  and  merry,  where 
boys  can  go  whose  mothers'  parlors  are  too  fine  for  them  to 


32  HOUSE  AND  HOME  PAPERS 

sit  in.  There  arc  enough  to  be  found  to  clap  them  on  the 
back,  and  tell  them  stories  that  their  mothers  must  not  hear, 
and  laugh  when  they  compass  with  their  little  piping  voices 
the  dreadful  litanies  of  sin  and  shame.  In  middle  life,  our 
poor  Sophie,  who  as  a  girl  was  so  gay  and  frolicsome,  so  full 
of  spirits,  had  dried  and  sharpened  into  a  hard-visaged, 
angular  woman,  —  careful  and  troubled  about  many  things, 
and  forgetful  that  one  thing  is  needful.  One  of  the  boys 
had  run  away  to  sea  ;  I  believe  he  has  never  been  heard  of. 
As  to  Tom,  the  eldest,  he  ran  a  career  wild  and  hard  enough 
for  a  time,  first  at  school  and  then  in  college,  and  there  came 
a  time  when  he  came  home,  in  the  full  might  of  six  feet  two, 
and  almost  broke  his  mother's  heart  with  his  assertions  of 
his  home  rights  and  privileges.  Mothers  who  throw  away 
the  key  of  their  children's  hearts  and  childhood  sometimes 
have  a  sad  retribution.  As  the  children  never  were  con 
sidered  when  they  were  little  and  helpless,  so  they  do  not 
consider  when  they  are  strong  and  powerful.  Tom  spread 
wide  desolation  among  the  household  gods,  lounging  on  the 
sofas,  spitting  tobacco  juice  on  the  carpets,  scattering  books 
and  engravings  hither  and  thither,  and  throwing  all  the 
family  traditions  into  wild  disorder,  as  he  would  never  have 
done  had  not  all  his  childish  remembrances  of  them  been 
embittered  by  the  association  of  restraint  and  privation. 
He  actually  seemed  to  hate  any  appearance  of  luxury  or 
taste  or  order,  —  he  was  a  perfect  Philistine. 

As  for  my  friend  Bill,  from  being  the  pleasantest  and 
most  genial  of  fellows,  he  became  a  morose,  misanthropic 
man.  Dr.  Franklin  has  a  significant  proverb,  —  "  Silks  and 
satins  put  out  the  kitchen  fire."  Silks  and  satins  —  mean 
ing  by  them  the  luxuries  of  housekeeping  —  often  put  out 
not  only  the  parlor  fire,  but  that  more  sacred  flame,  the  fire 
of  domestic  love.  It  is  the  greatest  possible  misery  to  a 
man  and  to  his  children  to  be  homeless ;  and  many  a  man 
has  a  splendid  house,  but  no  home. 


WHAT  IS   A   HOME  33 

"Papa,"  said  Jenny,  "  you  ought  to  write  and  tell  what 
are  your  ideas  of  keeping  a  home." 

"  Girls,  you  have  only  to  think  how  your  mother  has 
brought  you  up." 

Nevertheless,  I  think,  being  so  fortunate  a  husband,  I 
might  reduce  my  wife's  system  to  an  analysis,  and  my  next 
paper  shall  be,  What  is  a  Home,  and  How  to  Keep  it. 

Ill 

WHAT    IS    A    HOME 

It  is  among  the  sibylline  secrets  which  lie  mysteriously  be 
tween  you  and  me,  0  reader,  that  these  papers,  besides  their 
public  aspect,  have  a  private  one  proper  to  the  bosom  of 
mine  own  particular  family.  They  are  not  merely  an  ex 
post  facto  protest  in  regard  to  that  carpet  and  parlor  of  cele 
brated  memory,  but  they  are  forth-looking  towards  other 
homes  that  may  yet  arise  near  us.  For,  among  my  other 
confidences,  you  may  recollect  I  stated  to  you  that  our  Ma 
rianne  was  busy  in  those  interesting  cares  and  details  which 
relate  to  the  preparing  and  ordering  of  another  dwelling. 

Now,  when  any  such  matter  is  going  on  in  a  family,  I 
have  observed  that  every  feminine  instinct  is  in  a  state  of 
fluttering  vitality,  —  every  woman,  old  or  young,  is  alive 
with  womanliness  to  the  tips  of  her  fingers  ;  and  it  becomes 
us  of  the  other  sex,  however  consciously  respected,  to  walk 
softly  and  put  forth  our  sentiments  discreetly,  and  with  due 
reverence  for  the  mysterious  powers  that  reign  in  the  femi 
nine  breast. 

I  had  been  too  well  advised  to  offer  one  word  of  direct 
counsel  on  a  subject  where  there  were  such  charming 
voices,  so  able  to  convict  me  of  absurdity  at  every  turn.  I 


34  HOUSE  AND  HOME  PAPERS 

had  merely  so  arranged  my  affairs  as  to  put  into  the  hands 
of  my  bankers,  subject  to  my  wife's  order,  the  very  modest 
marriage  portion  which  I  could  place  at  my  girl's  disposal  ; 
and  Marianne  and  Jenny,  unused  to  the  handling  of 
money,  were  incessant  in  their  discussions  with  ever  patient 
mamma  as  to  what  was  to  be  done  with  it.  I  say  Mari 
anne  and  Jenny,  for,  though  the  case  undoubtedly  is 
Marianne's,  yet,  like  everything  else  in  our  domestic  pro 
ceedings,  it  seems  to  fall,  somehow  or  other,  into  Jenny's 
hands,  through  the  intensity  and  liveliness  of  her  domes 
ticity  of  nature.  Little  Jenny  is  so  bright  and  wide  awake, 
and  with  so  many  active  plans  and  fancies  touching  anything 
in  the  housekeeping  world,  that,  though  the  youngest  sis 
ter  and  second  party  in  this  affair,  a  stranger,  hearkening 
to  the  daily  discussions,  might  listen  a  half -hour  at  a  time 
without  finding  out  that  it  was  not  Jenny's  future  estab 
lishment  that  was  in  question.  Marianne  is  a  soft,  thought 
ful,  quiet  girl,  not  given  to  many  words ;  and  though, 
when  you  come  fairly  at  it,  you  will  find  that,  like  most 
quiet  girls,  she  has  a  will  five  times  as  inflexible  as  one 
who  talks  more,  yet  in  all  family  counsels  it  is  Jenny  and 
mamma  that  do  the  discussion,  and  her  own  little  well-con 
sidered  "  Yes  "  or  "  No  "  that  finally  settles  each  case. 

I  must  add  to  this  family  tableau  the  portrait  of  the  ex 
cellent  Bob  Stephens,  who  figured  as  future  proprietor  and 
householder  in  these  consultations.  So  far  as  the  question 
of  financial  possibilities  is  concerned,  it  is  important  to  re 
mark  that  Bob  belongs  to  the  class  of  young  Edmunds  cel 
ebrated  by  the  poet :  — 

"Wisdom  and  worth  were  all  he  had." 

He  is,  in  fact,  an  excellent-hearted  and  clever  fellow, 
with  a  world  of  agreeable  talents,  a  good  tenor  in  a  parlor 
duet,  a  good  actor  at  a  charade,  a  lively,  off-hand  conversa 
tionist,  well  up  in  all  the  current  literature  of  the  day,  and 


WHAT   IS   A    HOME  35 

what  is  more,  in  my  eyes,  a  well-read  lawyer,  just  admitted 
to  the  bar,  and  with  as  fair  business  prospects  as  usually 
fall  to  the  lot  of  young  aspirants  in  that  profession. 

Of  course,  he  and  my  girl  are  duly  and  truly  in  love,  in 
all  the  proper  moods  and  tenses;  but  as  to  this  work  they 
have  in  hand  of  being  householders,  managing  fuel,  rent, 
provision,  taxes,  gas  and  water  rates,  they  seem  to  my 
older  eyes  about  as  sagacious  as  a  pair  of  this  year's  robins. 
Nevertheless,  as  the  robins  of  each  year  do  somehow  learn 
to  build  nests  as  well  as  their  ancestors,  there  is  reason  to 
hope  as  much  for  each  new  pair  of  human  creatures.  But 
it  is  one  of  the  fatalities  of  our  ill-jointed  life  that  houses 
are  usually  furnished  for  future  homes  by  young  people  in 
just  this  state  of  blissful  ignorance  of  what  they  are  really 
wanted  for,  or  what  is  likely  to  be  done  with  the  things  in 
them. 

Now,  to  people  of  large  incomes,  with  ready  wealth  for 
the  rectification  of  mistakes,  it  does  n't  much  matter  how 
the  menage  is  arranged  at  first ;  they  will,  if  they  have 
good  sense,  soon  rid  themselves  of  the  little  infelicities  and 
absurdities  of  their  first  arrangements,  and  bring  their  estab 
lishment  to  meet  their  more  instructed  tastes. 

But  to  that  greater  class  who  have  only  a  modest  invest 
ment  for  this  first  start  in  domestic  life,  mistakes  are  far 
more  serious.  I  have  known  people  go  on  for  years  groan 
ing  under  the  weight  of  domestic  possessions  they  did  not 
want,  and  pining  in  vain  for  others  which  they  did,  simply 
from  the  fact  that  all  their  first  purchases  were  made  in  this 
time  of  blissful  ignorance. 

I  had  been  a  quiet  auditor  to  many  animated  discussions 
among  the  young  people  as  to  what  they  wanted  and  were 
to  get,  in  which  the  subject  of  prudence  and  economy  was 
discussed,  with  quotations  of  advice  thereon  given  in  serious 
good  faith  by  various  friends  and  relations  who  lived  easily 
on  incomes  four  or  five  times  larger  than  our  own.  Who 


36  HOUSE  AND  HOME  PAPERS 

can  show  the  ways  of  elegant  economy  more  perfectly  than 
people  thus  at  ease  in  their  possessions  ?  From  what  serene 
heights  do  they  instruct  the  inexperienced  beginners  !  Ten 
thousand  a  year  gives  one  leisure  for  reflection,  and  elegant 
leisure  enables  one  to  view  household  economies  dispassion 
ately  ;  hence  the  unction  with  which  these  gifted  daughters 
of  upper  air  delight  to  exhort  young  neophytes. 

"  Depend  upon  it,  my  dear/'  Aunt  Sophia  Easygo  had 
said,  "  it 's  always  the  best  economy  to  get  the  best  things. 
They  cost  more  in  the  beginning,  but  see  how  they  last ! 
These  velvet  carpets  on  my  floor  have  been  in  constant  wear 
for  ten  years,  and  look  how  they  wear !  I  never  have  an  in 
grain  carpet  in  my  house,  —  not  even  on  the  chambers.  Vel 
vet  and  Brussels  cost  more  to  begin  with,  but  then  they  last. 
Then  I  cannot  recommend  the  fashion  that  is  creeping  in 
of  having  plate  instead  of  solid  silver.  Plate  wears  off,  and 
has  to  be  renewed,  which  comes  to  about  the  same  thing  in 
the  end  as  if  you  bought  all  solid  at  first.  If  I  were  begin 
ning  as  Marianne  is,  I  should  just  set  aside  a  thousand 
dollars  for  my  silver,  and  be  content  with  a  few  plain  arti 
cles.  She  should  buy  all  her  furniture  at  Messrs.  David  & 
Saul's.  People  call  them  dear,  but  their  work  will  prove 
cheapest  in  the  end,  and  there  is  an  air  and  style  about  their 
things  that  can  be  told  anywhere.  Of  course,  you  won't  go 
to  any  extravagant  lengths,  —  simplicity  is  a  grace  of  itself." 

The  waters  of  the  family  council  were  troubled  when 
Jenny,  flaming  with  enthusiasm,  brought  home  the  report 
of  this  conversation.  When  my  wife  proceeded,  with  her 
well-trained  business  knowledge,  to  compare  the  prices  of 
the  simplest  elegancies  recommended  by  Aunt  Easygo  with 
the  sum  total  to  be  drawn  on,  faces  lengthened  perceptibly. 

"  How  are  people  to  go  to  housekeeping,"  said  Jenny, 
"  if  everything  costs  so  much  ?  " 

My  wife  quietly  remarked  that  we  had  had  great  comfort 
in  our  own  home,  —  had  entertained  unnumbered  friends,  and 


WHAT   IS    A   HOME  37 

had  only  ingrain  carpets  on  our  chambers  and  a  three-ply  on 
our  parlor,  and  she  doubted  if  any  guest  had  ever  thought  of 
it,  —  if  the  rooms  had  been  a  shade  less  pleasant ;  and  as 
to  durability,  Aunt  Easygo  had  renewed  her  carpets  oftener 
than  we.  Such  as  ours  were,  they  had  worn  longer  than  hers. 

"  But,  mamma,  you  know  everything  has  gone  on  since 
your  day.  Everybody  must  at  least  approach  a  certain  style 
nowadays.  One  can't  furnish  so  far  behind  other  people.'7 

My  wife  answered  in  her  quiet  way,  setting  forth  her  doc 
trine  of  a  plain  average  to  go  through  the  whole  establish 
ment,  placing  parlors,  chambers,  kitchen,  pantries,  and  the 
unseen  depths  of  linen-closets  in  harmonious  relations  of 
just  proportion,  and  showed  by  calm  estimates  how  far  the 
sum  given  could  go  towards  this  result.  There  the  limits 
were  inexorable.  There  is  nothing  so  damping  to  the  ardor 
of  youthful  economies  as  the  hard,  positive  logic  of  figures. 
It  is  so  delightful  to  think  in  some  airy  way  that  the  things 
we  like  best  are  the  cheapest,  and  that  a  sort  of  rigorous 
duty  compels  us  to  get  them  at  any  sacrifice.  There  is  no 
remedy  for  this  illusion  but  to  show  by  the  multiplication 
and  addition  tables  what  things  are  and  are  not  possible. 
My  wife's  figures  met  Aunt  Easygo's  assertions,  and  there 
was  a  lull  among  the  high  contracting  parties  for  a  season ; 
nevertheless,  I  could  see  Jenny  was  secretly  uneasy.  I 
began  to  hear  of  journeys  made  to  far  places,  here  and  there, 
where  expensive  articles  of  luxury  were  selling  at  reduced 
prices.  Now  a  gilded  mirror  was  discussed,  and  now  a 
velvet  carpet  which  chance  had  brought  down  temptingly 
near  the  sphere  of  financial  possibility.  I  thought  of  our 
parlor,  and  prayed  the  good  fairies  to  avert  the  advent  of 
ill-assorted  articles. 

"  Pray  keep  common  sense  uppermost  in  the  girls'  heads, 
if  you  can,"  said  I  to  Mrs.  Crowfield,  "  and  don't  let  the 
poor  little  puss  spend  her  money  for  what  she  won't  care  a 
button  about  by  and  by." 


38  HOUSE   AND   HOME   PAPERS 

"  I  shall  try,"  she  said ;  "  but  you  know  Marianne  is 
inexperienced,  and  Jenny  is  so  ardent  and  active,  and  so 
confident,  too.  Then  they  both,  I  think,  have  the  impres 
sion  that  we  are  a  little  behind  the  age.  To  say  the  truth, 
my  dear,  I  think  your  papers  afford  a  good  opportunity  of 
dropping  a  thought  now  and  then  in  their  minds.  Jenny 
was  asking  last  night  when  you  were  going  to  write  your 
next  paper.  The  girl  has  a  bright,  active  mind,  and  thinks 
of  what  she  hears." 

So  flattered,  by  the  best  of  flatterers,  I  sat  down  to  write 
on  my  theme  ;  and  that  evening,  at  firelight  time,  I  read 
to  my  little  senate  as  follows  :  — 

WHAT  IS   A   HOME,  AXD   HOW  TO   KEKP  IT 

I  have  shown  that  a  dwelling,  rented  or  owned  by  a 
man,  in  which  his  own  wife  keeps  house,  is  not  always,  or 
of  course,  a  home.  AYhat  is  it,  then,  that  makes  a  home  ? 
All  men  and  women  have  the  indefinite  knowledge  of 
what  they  want  and  long  for  when  that  word  is  spoken. 
"  Home !  "  sighs  the  disconsolate  bachelor,  tired  of  boarding- 
house  fare  and  but tonless  shirts.  "  Home  !*'  says  the  wan 
derer  in  foreign  lands,  and  thinks  of  mother's  love,  of  wife 
and  sister  and  child.  ^ay>  the  word  has  in  it  a  higher 
meaning  hallowed  by  religion  ;  and  when  the  Christian 
would  express  the  highest  of  his  hopes  for  a  better  life,  he 
speaks  of  his  home  beyond  the  grave.  The  word  "home"  has 
in  it  the  elements  of  love,  rest,  permanency,  and  liberty ; 
but,  besides  these,  it  has  in  it  the  idea  of  an  education  by 
which  all  that  is  purest  within  us  is  developed  into  nobler 
forms,  fit  for  a  higher  life.  The  little  child  by  the  home- 
fireside  was  taken  on  the  Master's  knee  when  he  would 
explain  to  his  disciples  the  mysteries  of  the  kingdom. 

Of  so  great  dignity  and  worth  is  this  holy  and  sacred 
thing,  that  the  power  to  create  a  HOME  ought  to  be  ranked 
above  all  creative  faculties.  The  sculptor  who  brings  out 


WHAT   IS  A   HOME  39 

the  breathing  statue  from  cold  marble,  the  painter  who 
warms  the  canvas  into  a  deathless  glow  of  beauty,  the  archi 
tect  who  built  cathedrals  and  hung  the  world-like  dome  of 
St.  Peter's  in  midair,  is  not  to  be  compared,  in  sanctity  and 
worthiness,  to  the  humblest  artist  who,  out  of  the  poor 
materials  afforded  by  this  shifting,  changing,  selfish  world, 
creates  the  secure  Eden  of  a  home. 

A  true  home  should  be  called  the  noblest  work  of  art 
possible  to  human  creatures,  inasmuch  as  it  is  the  very 
image  chosen  to  represent  the  last  and  highest  rest  of  the 
soul,  the  consummation  of  man's  blessedness. 

Not  without  reason  does  the  oldest  Christian  church  re 
quire  of  those  entering  on  marriage  the  most  solemn  review 
of  all  the  past  life,  the  confession  and  repentance  of  every 
sin  of  thought,  word,  and  deed,  and  the  reception  of  the 
holy  sacrament ;  for  thus  the  man  and  woman  who  approach 
the  august  duty  of  creating  a  home  are  reminded  of  the 
sanctity  and  beauty  of  what  they  undertake. 

In  this  art  of  homemaking  I  have  set  down  in  my  mind 
certain  first  principles,  like  the  axioms  of  Euclid,  and  the 
first  is,  —  * 

No  home  is  possible  without  love. 

All  business  marriages  and  marriages  of  convenience,  all 
mere  culinary  marriages  and  marriages  of  mere  animal 
passion,  make  the  creation  of  a  true  home  impossible  in  the 
outset.  Love  is  the  jeweled  foundation  of  this  New  Jeru 
salem  descending  from  God  out  of  heaven,  and  takes  as 
many  bright  forms  as  the  amethyst,  topaz,  and  sapphire  of 
that  mysterious  vision.  In  this  range  of  creative  art  all 
things  are  possible  to  him  that  loveth,  but  without  love 
nothing  is  possible. 

We  hear  of  most  convenient  marriages  in  foreign  lands, 
which  may  better  be  described  as  commercial  partnerships. 
The  money  on  each  side  is  counted ;  there  is  enough  be 
tween  the  parties  to  carry  on  the  firm,  each  having  the 


40  HOUSE  AND  HOME  PAPERS 

appropriate  sum  allotted  to  each.  No  love  is  pretended,  but 
there  is  great  politeness.  All  is  so  legally  and  thoroughly 
arranged  that  there  seems  to  be  nothing  left  for  future 
quarrels  to  fasten  on.  Monsieur  and  Madame  have  each  their 
apartments,  their  carriages,  their  servants,  their  income,  their 
friends,  their  pursuits,  —  understand  the  solemn  vows  of 
marriage  to  mean  simply  that  they  are  to  treat  each  other 
with  urbanity  in  those  few  situations  where  the  path  of  life 
must  necessarily  bring  them  together. 

We  are  sorry  that  such  an  idea  of  marriage  should  be 
gaining  foothold  in  America.  It  has  its  root  in  an  ignoble 
view  of  life,  —  an  utter  and  pagan  darkness  as  to  all  that 
man  and  woman  are  called  to  do  in  that  highest  relation 
where  they  act  as  one.  It  is  a  mean  and  low  contrivance 
on  both  sides,  by  which  all  the  grand  work  of  home-building, 
all  the  noble  pains  and  heroic  toils  of  home  education 
—  that  education  where  the  parents  learn  more  than  they 
teach  —  shall  be  (let  us  use  the  expressive  Yankee  idiom) 
shirked. 

It  is  a  curious  fact  that,  in  those  countries  where  this  sys 
tem  of  marriages  is  the  general  rXile,  there  is  no  word  corre 
sponding  to  our  English  word  "home."  In  many  polite  lan 
guages  of  Europe  it  would  be  impossible  neatly  to  translate 
the  sentiment  with  which  we  began  this  essay,  that  a  man's 
house  is  not  always  his  home. 

Let  any  one  try  to  render  the  song,  "  Sweet  Home,"  into 
French,  and  one  finds  how  Anglo-Saxon  is  the  very  genius 
of  the  word.  The  structure  of  life,  in  all  its  relations,  in 
countries  where  marriages  are  matter  of  arrangement  and 
not  of  love,  excludes  the  idea  of  home. 

How  does  life  run  in  such  countries  ?  The  girl  is  re 
called  from  her  convent  or  boarding-school,  and  told  that 
her  father  has  found  a  husband  for  her.  No  objection  on 
her  part  is  contemplated  or  provided  for  ;  none  generally 
occurs,  for  the  child  is  only  too  happy  to  obtain  the  fine 


WHAT   IS   A   HOME  41 

clothes  and  the  liberty  which  she  has  been  taught  come  only 
with  marriage.  Be  the  man  handsome  or  homely,  interesting 
or  stupid,  still  he  brings  these. 

Plow  intolerable  such  a  marriage  !  we  say,  with  the  close 
intimacies  of  Anglo-Saxon  life  in  our  minds.  They  are  not 
intolerable,  because  they  are  provided  for  by  arrangements 
which  make  it  possible  for  each  to  go  his  or  her  several  way, 
seeing  very  little  of  the  other.  The  son  or  daughter,  which 
in  due  time  makes  its  appearane  in  this  menage,  is  sent  out 
to  nurse  in  infancy,  sent  to  boarding-school  in  youth,  and 
in  maturity  portioned  and  married,  to  repeat  the  same  process 
for  another  generation.  Meanwhile  father  and  mother  keep 
a  quiet  establishment  and  pursue  their  several  pleasures. 
Such  is  the  system. 

Houses  built  for  this  kind  of  life  become  mere  sets  of  re 
ception-rooms,  such  as  are  the  greater  proportion  of  apart 
ments  to  let  in  Paris,  where  a  hearty  English  or  American 
family,  with  their  children  about  them,  could  scarcely  find 
room  to  establish  themselves.  Individual  character,  it  is 
true,  does  something  to  modify  this  programme.  There  are 
charming  homes  in  France  and  Italy,  where  warm  and  noble 
natures,  thrown  together  perhaps  by  accident,  or  mated  by 
wise  paternal  choice,  infuse  warmth  into  the  coldness  of  the 
system  under  which  they  live.  There  are  in  all  states  of 
society  some  of  such  domesticity  of  nature  that  they  will 
create  a  home  around  themselves  under  any  circumstances, 
however  barren.  Besides,  so  kindly  is  human  nature,  that 
Love,  uninvited  before  marriage,  often  becomes  a  guest  after, 
and  with  Love  always  conies  a  home. 

My  next  axiom  is,  — 

There  can  be  no  true  home  without  liberty. 

The  very  idea  of  home  is  of  a  retreat  where  we  shall  be 
free  to  act  out  personal  and  individual  tastes  and  peculiari 
ties,  as  we  cannot  do  before  the  wide  world.  We  are  to 
have  our  meals  at  what  hour  we  will,  served  in  what  style 


42  HOUSE  AND  HOME  PAPEKS 

suits  us.  Our  hours  of  going  and  coming  are  to  be  as  we 
please.  Our  favorite  haunts  are  to  be  here  or  there ;  our 
pictures  and  books  so  disposed  as  seems  to  us  good  ;  and  our 
whole  arrangements  the  expression,  so  far  as  our  means  can 
compass  it,  of  our  own  personal  ideas  of  what  is  pleasant 
and  desirable  in  life.  This  element  of  liberty,  if  we  think 
of  it,  is  the  chief  charm  of  home.  "  Here  I  can  do  as  I 
please,"  is  the  thought  with  which  the  tempest-tossed 
earth-pilgrim  blesses  himself  or  herself,  turning  inward  from 
the  crowded  ways  of  the  world.  This  thought  blesses  the 
man  of  business,  as  he  turns  from  his  day's  care  and  crosses 
the  sacred  threshold.  It  is  as  restful  to  him  as  the  slippers 
and  gown  and  easy-chair  by  the  fireside.  Everybody  under 
stands  him  here.  Everybody  is  well  content  that  he  should 
take  his  ease  in  his  own  way.  Such  is  the  case  in  the  ideal 
home.  That  such  is  not  always  the  case  in  the  real  home 
comes  often  from  the  mistakes  in  the  house-furnishing. 
Much  house-furnishing  is  too  fine  for  liberty. 

In  America  there  is  no  such  thing  as  rank  and  station 
which  impose  a  sort  of  prescriptive  style  on  people  of  certain 
income.  The  consequence  is  that  all  sorts  of  furniture  and 
belongings,  which  in  the  Old  World  have  a  recognized  relation 
to  certain  possibilities  of  income,  and  which  require  certain 
other  accessories  to  make  them  in  good  keeping,  are  thrown 
in  the  way  of  all  sorts  of  people. 

Young  people  who  cannot  expect  by  any  reasonable  possi 
bility  to  keep  more  than  two  or  three  servants,  if  they  hap 
pen  to  have  the  means  in  the  outset  furnish  a  house  with 
just  such  articles  as  in  England  would  suit  an  establishment 
of  sixteen.  We  have  seen  houses  in  England  having  two 
or  three  housemaids,  and  tables  served  by  a  butler  and 
two  waiters,  where  the  furniture,  carpets,  china,  crystal,  and 
silver  were  in  one  and  the  same  style  with  some  establish 
ments  in  America  where  the  family  was  hard  pressed  to  keep 
three  Irish  servants. 


WHAT   IS    A    HOME  43 

This  want  of  servants  is  the  one  thing  that  must  modify 
everything  in  American  life  ;  it  is,  and  will  long  continue 
to  be,  a  leading  feature  in  the  life  of  a  country  so  rich  in 
openings  for  man  and  woman  that  domestic  service  can  be 
only  the  stepping-stone  to  something  higher.  Nevertheless 
we  Americans  are  great  travelers  ;  we  are  sensitive,  apprecia 
tive,  fond  of  novelty,  apt  to  receive  and  incorporate  into 
our  own  life  what  seems  fair  and  graceful  in  that  of  other 
people.  Our  women's  wardrobes  are  made  elaborate  with 
the  thousand  elegancies  of  French  toilet,  —  our  houses  filled 
with  a  thousand  knick-knacks  of  which  our  plain  ancestors 
never  dreamed.  Cleopatra  did  not  set  sail  on  the  Nile  in 
more  state  and  beauty  than  that  in  which  our  young  American 
bride  is  often  ushered  into  her  new  home,  —  her  wardrobe 
all  gossamer  lace  and  quaint  frill  and  crimp  and  embroidery, 
her  house  a  museum  of  elegant  and  costly  gewgaws,  and, 
amid  the  whole  collection  of  elegancies  and  fragilities,  she, 
perhaps,  the  frailest. 

Then  comes  the  tug  of  war.  The  young  wife  becomes 
a  mother,  and  while  she  is  retired  to  her  chamber,  blunder 
ing  Biddy  rusts  the  elegant  knives,  or  takes  off  the  ivory 
handles  by  soaking  in  hot  water ;  the  silver  is  washed  in 
greasy  soapsuds,  and  refreshed  now  and  then  with  a  thump, 
which  cocks  the  nose  of  the  teapot  awry,  or  makes  the 
handle  assume  an  air  of  drunken  defiance.  The  fragile 
china  is  chipped  here  and  there  around  its  edges  with  those 
minute  gaps  so  vexatious  to  a  woman's  soul ;  the  handles 
fly  hither  and  thither  in  the  wild  confusion  of  Biddy's 
washing-day  hurry,  when  cook  wants  her  to  help  hang  out 
the  clothes.  Meanwhile  Bridget  sweeps  the  parlor  with  a 
hard  broom,  and  shakes  out  showers  of  ashes  from  the  grate, 
forgetting  to  cover  the  damask  lounges,  and  they  directly 
look  as  rusty  and  time-worn  as  if  they  had  come  from  an 
auction-store  ;  and  all  together  unite  in  making  such  havoc 
of  the  delicate  ruffles  and  laces  of  the  bridal  outfit  and  baby 


44  HOUSE  AND  HOME  PAPERS 

layette  that,  when  the  poor  young  wife  comes  out  of  her 
chamber  after  her  nurse  has  left  her,  and,  weakened  and 
embarrassed  with  the  demands  of  the  newcomer,  begins 
to  look  once  more  into  the  affairs  of  her  little  world,  she 
is  ready  to  sink  with  vexation  and  discouragement.  Poor 
little  princess  !  Her  clothes  are  made  as  princesses  wear 
them,  her  baby's  clothes  like  a  young  duke's,  her  house 
furnished  like  a  lord's,  and  only  Bridget  and  Biddy  and 
Polly  to  do  the  work  of  cook,  scullery-maid,  butler,  foot 
man,  laundress,  nursery-maid,  house-maid,  and  lady's  maid. 
Such  is  the  array  that  in  the  Old  Country  would  be  deemed 
necessary  to  take  care  of  an  establishment  got  up  like  hers. 
Everything  in  it  is  too  fine,  —  not  too  fine  to  be  pretty,  not 
in  bad  taste  in  itself,  but  too  fine  for  the  situation,  too  fine 
for  comfort  or  liberty. 

What  ensues  in  a  house  so  furnished  ?  Too  often,  cease 
less  fretting  of  the  nerves,  in  the  wife's  despairing,  con 
scientious  efforts  to  keep  things  as  they  should  be.  There 
is  no  freedom  in  a  house  where  things  are  too  expensive 
and  choice  to  be  freely  handled  and  easily  replaced.  Life 
becomes  a  series  of  petty  embarrassments  and  restrictions, 
something  is  always  going  wrong,  and  the  man  finds  his 
fireside  oppressive,  —  the  various  articles  of  his  parlor  and 
table  seem  like  so  many  temper-traps  and  spring-guns,  men 
acing  explosion  and  disaster. 

There  may  be,  indeed,  the  most  perfect  home-feeling,  the 
utmost  cosiness  and  restfulness,  in  apartments  crusted  with 
gilding,  carpeted  with  velvet,  and  upholstered  with  satin. 
I  have  seen  such,  where  the  home-like  look  and  air  of  free 
use  was  as  genuine  as  in  a  Western  log  cabin ;  but  this  was 
in  a  range  of  princely  income  that  made  all  these  things  as 
easy  to  be  obtained  or  replaced  as  the  most  ordinary  of  our 
domestic  furniture.  But  so  long  as  articles  must  be  shrouded 
from  use,  or  used  with  fear  and  trembling,  because  their 
cost  is  above  the  general  level  of  our  means,  we  had  better 


WHAT   IS   A    HOME  45 

be  without  them,  even  though  the  most  lucky  of  accidents 
may  put  their  possession  in  our  power. 

But  it  is  not  merely  by  the  effort  to  maintain  too  much 
elegance  that  the  sense  of  home  liberty  is  banished  from  a 
house.  It  is  sometimes  expelled  in  another  way,  with  all 
painstaking  and  conscientious  strictness,  by  the  worthiest 
and  best  of  human  beings,  the  blessed  followers  of  Saint 
Martha.  Have  we  not  known  them,  the  dear,  worthy  crea 
tures,  up  before  daylight,  causing  most  scrupulous  lustra 
tions  of  every  pane  of  glass  and  inch  of  paint  in  our  parlors, 
in  consequence  whereof  every  shutter  and  blind  must  be 
kept  closed  for  days  to  come,  lest  the  flies  should  speck  the 
freshly  washed  windows  and  wainscoting  ?  Dear  shade  of 
Aunt  Mehitabel,  forgive  our  boldness !  Have  we  not  been 
driven  for  days,  in  our  youth,  to  read  our  newspaper  in  the 
front  veranda,  in  the  kitchen,  out  in  the  barn,  —  anywhere, 
in  fact,  where  sunshine  could  be  found,  —  because  there  was 
not  a  room  in  the  house  that  was  not  cleaned,  shut  up,  and 
darkened  ?  Have  we  not  shivered  with  cold,  all  the  glow 
ering,  gloomy  month  of  May,  because,  the  august  front  parlor 
having  undergone  the  spring  cleaning,  the  andirons  were 
snugly  tied  up  in  the  tissue-paper,  and  an  elegant  frill  of 
the  same  material  was  trembling  before  the  mouth  of  the 
once  glowing  fireplace  ?  Even  so,  dear  soul,  full  of  loving- 
kindness  and  hospitality  as  thou  wast,  yet  ever  making  our 
house  seem  like  a  tomb !  And  with  what  patience  wouldst 
thou  sit  sewing  by  a  crack  in  the  shutters  an  inch  wide, 
rejoicing  in  thy  immaculate  paint  and  clear  glass !  But 
was  there  ever  a  thing  of  thy  spotless  and  unsullied  belong 
ings  which  a  boy  might  use?  How  I  trembled  to  touch 
thy  scoured  tins,  that  hung  in  appalling  brightness !  with 
what  awe  I  asked  for  a  basket  to  pick  strawberries  !  and 
where  in  the  house  could  I  find  a  place  to  eat  a  piece  of 
gingerbread  ?  How  like  a  ruffian,  a  Tartar,  a  pirate,  I  al 
ways  felt  when  I  entered  thy  domains  !  and  how,  from  day 


46  HOUSE  AND  HOME  PAPERS 

to  day,  I  wondered  at  the  immeasurable  depths  of  depravity 
which  were  always  leading  me  to  upset  something,  or  break 
or  tear  or  derange  something,  in  thy  exquisitely  kept  pre 
mises  !  Somehow  the  impression  was  burned  with  over 
powering  force  into  my  mind  that  houses  and  furniture, 
scrubbed  floors,  white  curtains,  bright  tins  and  brasses,  were 
the  great,  awful,  permanent  facts  of  existence ;  and  that 
men  and  women,  and  particularly  children,  were  the  med 
dlesome  intruders  upon  this  divine  order,  every  trace  of 
whose  intermeddling  must  be  scrubbed  out  and  obliterated 
in  the  quickest  way  possible.  It  seemed  evident  to  me 
that  houses  would  be  far  more  perfect  if  nobody  lived  in 
them  at  all,  but  that,  as  men  had  really  and  absurdly  taken 
to  living  in  them,  they  must  live  as  little  as  possible.  My 
only  idea  of  a  house  was  a  place  full  of  traps  and  pitfalls 
for  boys,  a  deadly  temptation  to  sins  which  beset  one  every 
moment ;  and  when  I  read  about  a  sailor's  free  life  on  the 
ocean,  I  felt  an  untold  longing  to  go  forth  and  be  free  in 
like  manner. 

But  a  truce  to  these  fancies,  and  back  again  to  our  essay. 

If  liberty  in  a  house  is  a  comfort  to  a  husband,  it  is  a 
necessity  to  children.  When  we  say  liberty,  we  do  not 
mean  license.  We  do  not  mean  that  Master  Johnny  be 
allowed  to  handle  elegant  volumes  with  bread-and-butter 
fingers,  or  that  little  Miss  be  suffered  to  drum  on  the  piano, 
or  practice  line-drawing  with  a  pin  on  varnished  furniture. 
Still  it  is  essential  that  the  family  parlors  be  not  too  fine 
for  the  family  to  sit  in,  —  too  fine  for  the  ordinary  acci 
dents,  haps  and  mishaps  of  reasonably  well-trained  children. 
The  elegance  of  the  parlor  where  papa  and  mamma  sit  and 
receive  their  friends  should  wear  an  inviting,  not  a  hostile 
and  bristling,  aspect  to  little  people.  Its  beauty  and  its 
order  gradually  form  in  the  little  mind  a  love  of  beauty  and 
order,  and  the  insensible  carefulness  of  regard. 

Nothing   is  worse  for  a  child  than  to  shut  him  up  in  a 


WHAT   IS   A   HOME  47 

room  which  he  understands  is  his,  because  he  is  disorderly, 
—  where  he  is  expected,  of  course,  to  maintain  and  keep  dis 
order.  We  have  sometimes  pitied  the  poor  little  victims 
who  show  their  faces  longingly  at  the  doors  of  elegant  par 
lors,  and  are  forthwith  collared  by  the  domestic  police  and 
consigned  to  some  attic  apartment,  called  a  playroom,  where 
chaos  continually  reigns.  It  is  a  mistake  to  suppose,  be 
cause  children  derange  a  well-furnished  apartment,  that 
they  like  confusion.  Order  and  beauty  are  always  pleasant 
to  them  as  to  grown  people,  and  disorder  and  defacement 
are  painful ;  but  they  know  neither  how  to  create  the  one 
nor  to  prevent  the  other,  —  their  little  lives  are  a  series  of 
experiments,  often  making  disorder  by  aiming  at  some  new 
form  of  order.  Yet,  for  all  this,  I  am  not  one  of  those  who 
feel  that  in  a  family  everything  should  bend  to  the  sway 
of  these  little  people.  They  are  the  worst  of  tyrants  in 
such  houses  :  still,  where  children  are,  though  the  fact  must 
not  appear  to  them,  nothing  must  be  done  without  a  wise 
thought  of  them. 

Here,  as  in  all  high  art,  the  old  motto  is  in  force,  "  Ars 
est  celare  artem"  Children  who  are  taught  too  plainly,  by 
every  anxious  look  and  word  of  their  parents,  by  every 
family  arrangement,  by  the  impressment  of  every  chance 
guest  into  the  service,  that  their  parents  consider  their  edu 
cation  as  the  one  important  matter  in  creation,  are  apt  to 
grow  up  fantastical,  artificial,  and  hopelessly  self-conscious. 
The  stars  cannot  stop  in  their  courses,  even  for  our  personal 
improvement,  and  the  sooner  children  learn  this  the  better. 
The  great  art  is  to  organize  a  home  which  shall  move  on 
with  a  strong,  wide,  generous  movement,  where  the  little 
people  shall  act  themselves  out  as  freely  and  impulsively  as 
can  consist  with  the  comfort  of  the  whole,  and  where  the 
anxious  watching  and  planning  for  them  shall  be  kept  as 
secret  from  them  as  possible. 

It  is  well  that  one  of  the  sunniest  and   airiest   rooms   in 


48  HOUSE  AND  HOME  PAPERS 

the  house  be  the  children's  nursery.  It  is  good  philosophy, 
too,  to  furnish  it  attractively,  even  if  the  sum  expended 
lower  the  standard  of  parlor  luxuries.  It  is  well  that  the 
children's  chamber,  which  is  to  act  constantly  on  their  im 
pressible  natures  for  years,  should  command  a  better  prospect, 
a  sunnier  aspect,  than  one  which  serves  for  a  day's  occu 
pancy  of  the  transient  guest.  It  is  well  that  journeys  should 
be  made  or  put  off  in  view  of  the  interests  of  the  children  ; 
that  guests  should  be  invited  with  a  view  to  their  improve 
ment;  that  some  intimacies  should  be  chosen  and  some  re 
jected  on  their  account.  But  it  is  not  well  that  all  this 
should,  from  infancy,  be  daily  talked  out  before  the  child, 
and  he  grow  up  in  egotism  from  moving  in  a  sphere  where 
everything  from  first  to  last  is  calculated  and  arranged  with 
reference  to  himself.  A  little  appearance  of  wholesome 
neglect  combined  with  real  care  and  never  ceasing  watchful 
ness  has  often  seemed  to  do  wonders  in  this  work  of  setting 
human  beings  on  their  own  feet  for  the  life  journey. 

Education  is  the  highest  object  of  home,  but  education  in 
the  widest  sense,  —  education  of  the  parents  no  less  than  of 
the  children.  In  a  true  home  the  man  and  the  woman  re 
ceive,  through  their  cares,  their  watchings,  their  hospitality, 
their  charity,  the  last  and  highest  finish  that  earth  can  put 
upon  them.  From  that  they  must  pass  upward,  for  earth 
can  teach  them  no  more. 

The  home  education  is  incomplete  unless  it  include  the 
idea  of  hospitality  and  charity.  Hospitality  is  a  Biblical 
and  apostolic  virtue,  and  not  so  often  recommended  in  Holy 
Writ  without  reason.  Hospitality  is  much  neglected  in 
America  for  the  very  reasons  touched  upon  above.  We 
have  received  our  ideas  of  propriety  and  elegance  of  living 
from  old  countries,  where  labor  is  cheap,  where  domestic 
service  is  a  well-understood,  permanent  occupation,  adopted 
cheerfully  for  life,  and  where  of  course  there  is  such  a  sub 
division  of  labor  as  insures  great  thoroughness  in  all  its 


WHAT   IS   A   HOME  49 

branches.  We  are  ashamed  or  afraid  to  conform  honestly 
and  hardily  to  a  state  of  things  purely  American.  We  have 
not  yet  accomplished  what  our  friend  the  Doctor  calls  "  our 
weaning,"  and  learned  that  dinners  with  circuitous  courses 
and  divers  other  Continental  and  English  refinements,  well 
enough  in  their  way,  cannot  be  accomplished  in  families 
with  two  or  three  untrained  servants,  without  an  expense 
of  care  and  anxiety  which  makes  them  heart-withering  to 
the  delicate  wife,  and  too  severe  a  trial  to  occur  often. 
America  is  the  land  of  subdivided  fortunes,  of  a  general 
average  of  wealth  and  comfort,  and  there  ought  to  be,  there 
fore,  an  understanding  in  the  social  basis  far  more  simple 
than  in  the  Old  World. 

Many  families  of  small  fortunes  know  this,  —  they  are 
quietly  living  so,  —  but  they  have  not  the  steadiness  to 
share  their  daily  average  living  with  a  friend,  a  traveler,  or 
guest,  just  as  the  Arab  shares  his  tent  and  the  Indian  his 
bowl  of  succotash.  They  cannot  have  company,  they  say. 
Why  ?  Because  it  is  such  a  fuss  to  get  out  the  best  things, 
and  then  to  put  them  back  again.  But  why  get  out  the 
best  things  ?  Why  not  give  your  friend  what  he  would 
like  a  thousand  times  better,  —  a  bit  of  your  average  home 
life,  a  seat  at  any  time  at  your  board,  a  seat  at  your  fire  ? 
If  he  sees  that  there  is  a  handle  off  your  teacup,  and  that 
there  is  a  crack  across  one  of  your  plates,  he  only  thinks, 
with  a  sigh  of  relief,  "  Well,  mine  are  n't  the  only  things 
that  meet  with  accidents,"  and  he  feels  nearer  to  you  ever 
after ;  he  will  let  you  come  to  his  table  and  see  the  cracks 
in  his  teacups,  and  you  will  condole  with  each  other  on  the 
transient  nature  of  earthly  possessions.  If  it  become  appar 
ent  in  these  entirely  undressed  rehearsals  that  your  children 
are  sometimes  disorderly,  and  that  your  cook  sometimes 
overdoes  the  meat,  and  that  your  second  girl  sometimes  is 
awkward  in  waiting,  or  has  forgotten  a  table  propriety,  your 
friend  only  feels,  "  Ah,  well,  other  people  have  trials  as 


50  HOUSE  AND  HOME  PAPERS 

well  as  I,"  and  he  thinks,  if  you  come  to  see  him,  he  shall 
feel  easy  with  you. 

"  Having  company  "  is  an  expense  that  may  always  be 
felt ;  but  easy  daily  hospitality,  the  plate  always  on  your 
table  for  a  friend,  is  an  expense  that  appears  on  no  account- 
book,  and  a  pleasure  that  is  daily  and  constant. 

Under  this  head  of  hospitality,  let  us  suppose  a  case. 
A  traveler  comes  from  England  ;  he  comes  in  good  faith 
and  good  feeling  to  see  how  Americans  live.  He  merely 
wants  to  penetrate  into  the  interior  of  domestic  life,  to  see 
what  there  is  genuinely  and  peculiarly  American  about  it. 
Now  here  is  Smilax,  who  is  living,  in  a  small,  neat  way, 
on  his  salary  from  the  daily  press.  He  remembers  hospi 
talities  received  from  our  traveler  in  England,  and  wants  to 
return  them.  He  remembers,  too,  with  dismay,  a  well-kept 
establishment,  the  well-served  table,  the  punctilious,  orderly 
servants.  Smilax  keeps  two,  a  cook  and  chambermaid,  who 
divide  the  functions  of  his  establishment  between  them. 
What  shall  he  do  ?  Let  him  say,  in  a  fair,  manly  way, 
"  My  dear  fellow,  I  'm  delighted  to  see  you.  I  live  in  a 
small  way,  but  I  '11  do  my  best  for  you,  and  Mrs.  Smilax 
will  be  delighted.  Come  and  dine  with  us,  so  and  so,  and 
we  '11  bring  in  one  or  two  friends."  So  the  man  comes,  and 
Mrs.  Smilax  serves  up  such  a  dinner  as  lies  within  the 
limits  of  her  knowledge  and  the  capacities  of  her  servants. 
All  plain,  good  of  its  kind,  unpretending,  without  an  at 
tempt  to  do  anything  English  or  French,  —  to  do  anything 
more  than  if  she  were  furnishing  a  gala  dinner  for  her  father 
or  returned  brother.  Show  him  your  house  freely,  just  as 
it  is,  talk  to  him  freely  of  it,  just  as  he  in  England  showed 
you  his  larger  house  and  talked  to  you  of  his  finer  things. 
If  the  man  is  a  true  man,  he  will  thank  you  for  such  unpre 
tending,  sincere  welcome ;  if  he  is  a  man  of  straw,  then  he 
is  not  worth  wasting  Mrs.  Smilax' s  health  and  spirits  for,  in 
unavailing  efforts  to  get  up  a  foreign  dinner-party. 


WHAT   IS   A   HOME  51 

A  man  who  has  any  heart  in  him  values  a  genuine,  little 
bit  of  home  more  than  anything  else  you  can  give  him. 
He  can  get  French  cooking  at  a  restaurant ;  he  can  buy  ex 
pensive  wines  at  first-class  hotels,  if  he  wants  them  ;  but  the 
traveler,  though  ever  so  rich  and  ever  so  well-served  at 
home,  is,  after  all,  nothing  but  a  man  as  you  are,  and  he  is 
craving  something  that  does  n't  seem  like  an  hotel,  —  some 
bit  of  real,  genuine  heart  life.  Perhaps  he  would  like  bet 
ter  than  anything  to  show  you  the  last  photograph  of  his 
wife,  or  to  read  to  you  the  great,  round-hand  letter  of  his 
ten-year-old  which  he  has  got  to-day.  He  is  ready  to  cry 
when  he  thinks  of  it.  In  this  mood  he  goes  to  see  you, 
hoping  for  something  like  home,  and  you  first  receive  him 
in  a  parlor  opened  only  on  state  occasions,  and  that  has  been 
circumstantially  and  exactly  furnished,  as  the  upholsterer 
assures  you,  as  every  other  parlor  of  the  kind  in  the  city  is 
furnished.  You  treat  him  to  a  dinner  got  up  for  the  occa 
sion,  with  hired  waiters,  —  a  dinner  which  it  has  taken  Mrs. 
Smilax  a  week  to  prepare  for,  and  will  take  her  a  week  to 
recover  from,  —  for  which  the  baby  has  been  snubbed  and 
turned  off,  to  his  loud  indignation,  and  your  young  four- 
year-old  sent  to  his  aunts.  Your  traveler  eats  your  dinner, 
and  finds  it  inferior,  as  a  work  of  art,  to  other  dinners,  —  a 
poor  imitation.  He  goes  away  and  criticises  ;  you  hear  of 
it,  and  resolve  never  to  invite  a  foreigner  again.  But  if 
you  had  given  him  a  little  of  your  heart,  a  little  home 
warmth  and  feeling,  —  if  you  had  shown  him  your  baby, 
and  let  him  romp  with  your  four-year-old,  and  eat  a  genuine 
dinner  with  you,  —  would  he  have  been  false  to  that  ?  Not 
so  likely.  He  wanted  something  real  and  human,  —  you 
gave  him  a  bad  dress  rehearsal,  and  dress  rehearsals  always 
provoke  criticism. 

Besides  hospitality,  there  is,  in  a  true  home,  a  mission  of 
charity.  It  is  a  just  law  which  regulates  the  possession  of 
great  or  beautiful  works  of  art  in  the  Old  World,  that  they 


52  HOUSE  AND  HOME  TAPERS 

shall  in  some  sense  be  considered  the  property  of  all  who 
can  appreciate.  Fine  grounds  have  hours  when  the  public 
may  be  admitted ;  pictures  and  statues  may  be  shown  to 
visitors  :  and  this  is  a  noble  charity.  In  the  same  manner 
the  fortunate  individuals  who  have  achieved  the  greatest  of 
all  human  works  of  art  should  employ  it  as  a  sacred  charity. 
How  many,  morally  wearied,  wandering,  disabled,  are  healed 
and  comforted  by  the  warmth  of  a  true  home  !  When  a 
mother  has  sent  her  son  to  the  temptations  of  a  distant 
city,  what  news  is  so  glad  to  her  heart  as  that  he  has  found 
some  quiet  family  where  he  visits  often  and  is  made  to  feel 
at  HOME  ?  How  many  young  men  have  good  women  saved 
from  temptation  and  shipwreck  by  drawing  them  often  to 
the  sheltered  corner  by  the  fireside  !  The  poor  artist ; 
the  wandering  genius  who  has  lost  his  way  in  this  world, 
and  stumbles  like  a  child  among  hard  realities ;  the  many 
men  and  women  who,  while  they  have  houses,  have  no 
homes,  see  from  afar,  in  their  distant,  bleak  life  journey, 
the  light  of  a  true  home  fire,  and,  if  made  welcome  there, 
warm  their  stiffened  limbs,  and  go  forth  stronger  to  their 
pilgrimage.  Let  those  who  have  accomplished  this  beau 
tiful  and  perfect  work  of  divine  art  be  liberal  of  its  in 
fluence.  Let  them  not  seek  to  bolt  the  doors  and  draw  the 
curtains ;  for  they  know  not,  and  will  never  know  till  the 
future  life,  of  the  good  they  may  do  by  the  ministration  of 
this  great  charity  of  home. 

We  have  heard  much  lately  of  the  restricted  sphere  of 
woman.  We  have  been  told  how  many  spirits  among  wo 
men  are  of  a  wider,  stronger,  more  heroic  mould  than  befits 
the  mere  routine  of  housekeeping.  It  may  be  true  that 
there  are  many  women  far  too  great,  too  wise,  too  high,  for 
mere  housekeeping.  But  where  is  the  woman  in  any  way 
too  great,  or  too  high,  or  too  wise,  to  spend  herself  in  creat 
ing  a  home  ?  What  can  any  woman  make  diviner,  higher, 
better  ?  From  such  homes  go  forth  all  heroisms,  all  in- 


WHAT   IS   A   HOME  53 

spirations,  all  great  deeds.  Such  mothers  and  such  homes 
have  made  the  heroes  and  martyrs,  faithful  unto  death,  who 
have  given  their  precious  lives  to  us  during  these  three 
years  of  our  agony  ! 

Homes  are  the  work  of  art  peculiar  to  the  genius  of  wo- 
man.  Man  helps  in  this  work,  but  woman  leads  ;  the  hive 
is  always  in  confusion  without  the  queen  bee.  But  what  a 
woman  must  she  be  who  does  this  work  perfectly  !  She 
comprehends  all,  she  balances  and  arranges  all ;  all  different 
tastes  and  temperaments  find  in  her  their  rest,  and  she  can 
unite  at  one  hearthstone  the  most  discordant  elements.  In 
her  is  order,  yet  an  order  ever  veiled  and  concealed  by  in 
dulgence.  None  are  checked,  reproved,  abridged  of  privi 
leges  by  her  love  of  system ;  for  she  knows  that  order  was 
made  for  the  family,  and  not  the  family  for  order.  Quietly 
she  takes  on  herself  what  all  others  refuse  or  overlook. 
What  the  unwary  disarrange  she  silently  rectifies.  Every 
body  in  her  sphere  breathes  easy,  feels  free  ;  and  the  driest 
twig  begins  in  her  sunshine  to  put  out  buds  and  blos 
soms.  So  quiet  are  her  operations  and  movements  that 
none  sees  that  it  is  she  who  holds  all  things  in  harmony ; 
only,  alas,  when  she  is  gone,  how  many  things  suddenly 
appear  disordered,  inharmonious,  neglected !  All  these 
threads  have  been  smilingly  held  in  her  weak  hand.  Alas, 
if  that  is  no  longer  there  ! 

Can  any  woman  be  such  a  housekeeper  without  inspira 
tion  ?  No.  In  the  words  of  the  old  church  service,  "  her 
soul  must  ever  have  affiance  in  God."  The  New  Jerusa 
lem  of  a  perfect  home  cometh  down  from  God  out  of  hea 
ven.  But  to  make  such  a  home  is  ambition  high  and  wor 
thy  enough  for  any  woman,  be  she  what  she  may. 

One  thing  more.  Right  on  the  threshold  of  all  perfec 
tion  lies  the  cross  to  be  taken  up.  No  one  can  go  over  or 
around  that  cross  in  science  or  in  art.  Without  labor  and 
self-denial  neither  R/aphael  nor  Michel  Angelo  nor  Newton 


54  HOUSE  AND  HOME  PAPERS 

was  made  perfect.  Nor  can  man  or  woman  create  a  true 
home  who  is  not  willing  in  the  outset  to  embrace  life  he 
roically,  to  encounter  labor  and  sacrifice.  Only  to  such 
shall  this  divinest  power  be  given  to  create  on  earth  that 
which  is  the  nearest  image  of  heaven. 


IV 

THE    ECONOMY    OF    THE    BEAUTIFUL 

Talking  to  you  in  this  way  once  a  month,  0  my  confi 
dential  reader,  there  seems  to  be  danger,  as  in  all  intervals 
of  friendship,  that  we  shall  not  readily  be  able  to  take  up 
our  strain  of  conversation  just  where  we  left  off.  Suffer 
me,  therefore,  to  remind  you  that  the  month  past  left  us 
seated  at  the  fireside,  just  as  we  had  finished  reading  of  what 
a  home  was,  and  how  to  make  one. 

The  fire  had  burned  low,  and  great,  solid  hickory  coals 
were  winking  dreamily  at  us  from  out  their  fluffy  coats  of 
white  ashes,  — just  as  if  some  household  sprite  there  were 
opening  now  one  eye  and  then  the  other,  and  looking  in  a 
sleepy,  comfortable  way  at  us. 

The  close  of  my  piece  about  the  good  house  mother  had 
seemed  to  tell  on  my  little  audience.  Marianne  had  nestled 
close  to  her  mother,  and  laid  her  head  on  her  knee  ;  and 
though  Jenny  sat  up  straight  as  a  pin,  yet  her  ever  busy 
knitting  was  dropped  in  her  lap,  and  I  saw  the  glint  of  a 
tear  in  her  quick,  sparkling  eye,  —  yes,  actually  a  little  bright 
bead  fell  upon  her  work  ;  whereupon  she  started  up  actively, 
and  declared  that  the  fire  wanted  just  one  more  stick  to  make 
a  blaze  before  bedtime  ;  and  then  there  was  such  a  raking 
among  the  coals,  such  an  adjusting  of  the  andirons,  such 
vigorous  arrangement  of  the  wood,  and  such  a  brisk  whisk 
ing  of  the  hearth-brush,  that  it  was  evident  Jenny  had  some 
thing  on  her  mind.  When  all  was  done,  she  sat  down  again 


THE   ECONOMY   OF   THE   BEAUTIFUL  55 

and  looked  straight  into  the  blaze,  which  went  dancing  and 
crackling  up,  casting  glances  and  flecks  of  light  on  our  pic 
tures  and  books,  and  making  all  the  old,  familiar  furniture 
seem  full  of  life  and  motion. 

"  I  think  that  's  a  good  piece,"  she  said  decisively.  "  I 
think  those  are  things  that  should  be  thought  about." 

Now  Jenny  was  the  youngest  of  our  flock,  and  therefore, 
in  a  certain  way,  regarded  by  my  wife  and  me  as  perennially 
"  the  baby  ;  "  and  these  little,  old-fashioned,  decisive  ways 
of  announcing  her  opinions  seemed  so  much  a  part  of  her 
nature,  so  peculiarly  "  Jenriyish,"  as  I  used  to  say,  that  my 
wife  and  I  only  exchanged  amused  glances  over  her  head 
when  they  occurred. 

In  a  general  way,  Jenny,  standing  in  the  full  orb  of  her 
feminine  instincts  like  Diana  in  the  moon,  rather  looked 
down  on  all  masculine  views  of  women's  matters  as  tole- 
rabiles  inept-ice;  but  towards  her  papa  she  had  gracious 
turns  of  being  patronizing  to  the  last  degree  ;  and  one  of 
these  turns  was  evidently  at  its  flood-tide,  as  she  proceeded 
to  say, — 

"/think  papa  is  right,  —  that  keeping  house  and  having 
a  home,  and  all  that,  is  a  very  serious  thing,  and  that  peo 
ple  go  into  it  with  very  little  thought  about  it.  I  really 
think  those  things  papa  has  been  saying  there  ought  to  be 
thought  about." 

"  Papa,"  said  Marianne,  "  I  wish  you  would  tell  me  ex 
actly  how  you  would  spend  that  money  you  gave  me  for 
house-furnishing.  I  should  like  just  your  views." 

"  Precisely,"  said  Jenny  with  eagerness  ;  "  because  it  is 
just  as  papa  says,  —  a  sensible  man,  who  has  thought  and 
had  experience,  can't  help  having  some  ideas,  even  about 
women's  affairs,  that  are  worth  attending  to.  I  think  so, 
decidedly." 

I  acknowledged  the  compliment  for  my  sex  and  myself 
with  my  best  bow. 


56  HOUSE  AND  HOME  PAPERS 

"  But  then,  papa,"  said  Marianne,  "  I  can't  help  feeling 
sorry  that  one  can't  live  in  such  a  way  as  to  have  beautiful 
things  around  one.  I  'm  sorry  they  must  cost  so  much,  and 
take  so  much  care,  for  I  am  made  so  that  I  really  want 
them.  I  do  so  like  to  see  pretty  things  !  I  do  like  rich 
carpets  and  elegant  carved  furniture,  and  fine  china  and  cut- 
glass  and  silver.  I  can't  bear  mean,  common-looking  rooms. 
I  should  so  like  to  have  my  house  look  beautiful !  " 

"  Your  house  ought  not  to  look  mean  and  common,  — 
your  house  ought  to  look  beautiful,"  I  replied.  "  It  would 
be  a  sin  and  a  shame  to  have  it  otherwise.  No  house  ought 
to  be  fitted  up  for  a  future  home  without  a  strong  and  a 
leading  reference  to  beauty  in  all  its  arrangements.  If  I 
were  a  Greek,  I  should  say  that  the  first  household  libation 
should  be  made  to  beauty  ;  but,  being  an  old-fashioned 
Christian,  I  would  say  that  he  who  prepares  a  home  with 
no  eye  to  beauty  neglects  the  example  of  the  great  Father 
who  has  filled  our  earth  home  with  such  elaborate  orna 
ment." 

"  But  then,  papa,  there  's  the  money !  "  said  Jenny, 
shaking  her  little  head  wisely.  "  You  men  don't  think  of 
that.  You  want  us  girls,  for  instance,  to  be  patterns  of 
economy,  but  we  must  always  be  wearing  fresh,  nice  things ; 
you  abhor  soiled  gloves  and  worn  shoes ;  and  yet  how  is 
all  this  to  be  done  without  money  ?  And  it 's  just  so  in 
housekeeping.  You  sit  in  your  armchairs,  and  conjure  up 
visions  of  all  sorts  of  impossible  things  to  be  done  ;  but 
when  mamma  there  takes  out  that  little  account-book,  and 
figures  away  on  the  cost  of  things,  where  do  the  visions  go  ?  " 

"  You  are  mistaken,  my  little  dear,  and  you  talk  just  like 
a  woman,"  —  this  was  my  only  way  of  revenging  myself ; 
"  that  is  to  say,  you  jump  to  conclusions,  without  suffi 
cient  knowledge.  I  maintain  that  in  house-furnishing,  as 
well  as  woman-furnishing,  there  's  nothing  so  economical  as 
beauty." 


THE   ECONOMY   OF  THE   BEAUTIFUL  57 

"  There  's  one  of  papa's  paradoxes  !  "  said  Jenny. 

"  Yes,"  said  I,  "  that  is  my  thesis,  which  I  shall  nail  up 
over  the  mantelpiece  there,  as  Luther  nailed  his  to  the 
church  door.  It  is  time  to  rake  up  the  fire  now ;  but  to 
morrow  night  I  will  give  you  a  paper  on  the  Economy  of 
the  Beautiful." 

"Come,  now  we  are  to  have  papa's  paradox,"  said  Jenny, 
as  soon  as  the  tea-things  had  been  carried  out. 

Entre  nous,  I  must  tell  you  that  insensibly  we  had  fallen 
into  the  habit  of  taking  our  tea  by  my  study  fire.  Tea,  you 
know,  is  a  mere  nothing  in  itself,  its  only  merit  being  its 
social  and  poetic  associations,  its  warmth  and  fragrance ; 
and  the  more  socially  and  informally  it  can  be  dispensed, 
the  more  in  keeping  with  its  airy  and  cheerful  nature. 

Our  circle  was  enlightened  this  evening  by  the  cheery 
visage  of  Bob  Stephens,  seated,  as  of  right,  close  to  Mari 
anne's  work-basket. 

"  You  see,  Bob,"  said  Jenny,  "  papa  has  undertaken  to 
prove  that  the  most  beautiful  things  are  always  the  cheap 
est." 

"  I  'm  glad  to  hear  that,"  said  Bob ;  "  for  there's  a  carved 
antique  bookcase  and  study-table  that  I  have  my  eye  on,  and 
if  this  can  in  any  way  be  made  to  appear  "  — 

"  Oh,  it  won't  be  made  to  appear,"  said  Jenny,  settling 
herself  at  her  knitting,  "  only  in  some  transcendental,  poetic 
sense,  such  as  papa  can  always  make  out.  Papa  is  more 
than  half  a  poet,  and  his  truths  turn  out  to  be  figures  of 
rhetoric  when  one  comes  to  apply  them  to  matters  of  fact." 

"  Now,  Miss  Jenny,  please  remember  my  subject  and 
thesis,"  I  replied,  —  "  that  in  house-furnishing  there  is  no 
thing  so  economical  as  beauty ;  and  I  will  make  it  good 
against  all  comers,  not  by  figures  of  rhetoric,  but  by  figures 
of  arithmetic.  I  am  going  to  be  very  matter-of-fact  and 
commonplace  in  my  details,  and  keep  ever  in  view  the 


58  HOUSE  AND  HOME  PAPERS 

addition  table.     I  will  instance  a  case  which  has  occurred 
under  my  own  observation.7' 

THE    ECONOMY    OF    THE    BEAUTIFUL 

Two  of  the  houses  lately  built  on  the  new  land  in  Boston 
were  bought  by  two  friends,  Philip  and  John.  Philip  had 
plenty  of  money,  and  paid  the  cash  down  for  his  house, 
without  feeling  the  slightest  vacancy  in  his  pocket.  John, 
who  was  an  active,  rising  young  man,  just  entering  on  a 
nourishing  business,  had  expended  all  his  moderate  savings 
for  years  in  the  purchase  of  his  dwelling,  and  still  had  a 
mortgage  remaining,  which  he  hoped  to  clear  off  by  his 
future  successes.  Philip  begins  the  work  of  furnishing  as 
people  do  with  whom  money  is  abundant,  and  who  have 
simply  to  go  from  shop  to  shop  and  order  all  that  suits  their 
fancy  and  is  considered  "the  thing"  in  good  society.  John 
begins  to  furnish  with  very  little  money.  He  has  a  wife 
and  two  little  ones,  and  he  wisely  deems  that  to  insure  to 
them  a  well-built  house,  in  an  open,  airy  situation,  with  con 
veniences  for  warming,  bathing,  and  healthy  living,  is  a  wise 
beginning  in  life  ;  but  it  leaves  him  little  or  nothing  beyond. 

Behold,  then,  Philip  and  his  wife,  well  pleased,  going  the 
rounds  of  shops  and  stores  in  fitting  up  their  new  dwelling, 
and  let  us  follow  step  by  step.  To  begin  with  the  wall 
paper.  Imagine  a  front  and  back  parlor,  with  folding-doors, 
with  two  south  windows  on  the  front,  and  two  looking  on 
a  back  court,  after  the  general  manner  of  city  houses.  AVe 
will  suppose  they  require  about  thirty  rolls  of  wall-paper. 
Philip  buys  the  heaviest  French  velvet,  with  gildings  and 
traceries,  at  four  dollars  a  roll.  This,  by  the  time  it  has 
been  put  on,  with  gold  mouldings,  according  to  the  most 
established  taste  of  the  best  paper-hangers,  will  bring  the 
wall-paper  of  the  two  rooms  to  a  figure  something  like  two 
hundred  dollars.  Now  they  proceed  to  the  carpet  stores, 
and  there  are  thrown  at  their  feet  by  obsequious  clerks 


THE    ECONOMY    OF    THE    BEAUTIFUL  59 

velvets  and  Axminsters,  with  flowery  convolutions  and 
medallion  centres,  as  if  the  flower  gardens  of  the  tropics 
were  whirling  in  waltzes,  with  graceful  lines  of  arabesque, 
—  roses,  callas,  lilies,  knotted,  wreathed,  twined,  with  blue 
and  crimson  and  golden  ribbons,  dazzling  marvels  of  color 
and  tracery.  There  is  no  restraint  in  price,  —  four  or  six 
dollars  a  yard,  it  is  all  the  same  to  them,  —  and  soon  a 
magic  flower  garden  blooms  on  the  floors,  at  a  cost  of  five 
hundred  dollars.  A  pair  of  elegant  rugs,  at  fifty  dollars 
apiece,  complete  the  inventory,  and  bring  our  rooms  to  the 
mark  of  eight  hundred  dollars  for  papering  and  carpeting 
alone.  Now  come  the  great  mantel-mirrors  for  four  hundred 
more,  and  our  rooms  progress.  Then  comes  the  upholsterer? 
and  measures  our  four  windows,  that  he  may  skillfully  bar 
ricade  them  from  air  and  sunshine.  The  fortifications  against 
heaven,  thus  prepared,  cost,  in  the  shape  of  damask,  cord, 
tassels,  shades,  laces,  and  cornices,  about  two  hundred  dollars 
per  window.  To  be  sure,  they  make  the  rooms  close  and 
sombre  as  the  grave,  but  they  are  of  the  most  splendid 
staffs ;  and  if  the  sun  would  only  reflect,  he  would  see, 
himself,  how  foolish  it  was  for  him  to  try  to  force  himself 
into  a  window  guarded  by  his  betters.  If  there  is  anything 
cheap  and  plebeian,  it  is  sunshine  and  fresh  air !  Behold  us, 
then,  with  our  two  rooms  papered,  carpeted,  and  curtained 
for  two  thousand  dollars  ;  and  now  are  to  be  put  in  them 
sofas,  lounges,  etageres,  centre-tables,  screens,  chairs  of  every 
pattern  and  device,  for  which  it  is  but  moderate  to  allow  a 
thousand  more.  We  have  now  two  parlors  furnished  at  an 
outlay  of  three  thousand  dollars,  without  a  single  picture,  a 
single  article  of  statuary,  a  single  object  of  art  of  any  kind, 
and  without  any  light  to  see  them  by  if  they  were  there. 
We  must  say  for  our  Boston  upholsterers  and  furniture- 
makers  that  such  good  taste  generally  reigns  in  their  estab 
lishments  that  rooms  furnished  at  haphazard  from  them 
cannot  fail  of  a  certain  air  of  good  taste,  so  far  as  the  indi- 


60  HOUSE  AND  HOME  PAPERS 

vidual  things  are  concerned.  But  the  different  articles  we 
have  supposed,  having  been  ordered  without  reference  to 
one  another  or  the  rooms,  have,  when  brought  together,  no 
unity  of  effect,  and  the  general  result  is  scattering  and  con 
fused.  If  asked  how  Philip's  parlors  look,  your  reply  is, 
"  Oh,  the  usual  way  of  such  parlors,  —  everything  that  such 
people  usually  get,  —  medallion  carpets,  carved  furniture, 
great  mirrors,  bronze  mantel  ornaments,  and  so  on."  The 
only  impression  a  stranger  receives,  while  waiting  in  the 
dim  twilight  of  these  rooms,  is  that  their  owner  is  rich,  and 
able  to  get  good,  handsome  things,  such  as  all  other  rich 
people  get. 

Now  our  friend  John,  as  often  happens  in  America,  is 
moving  in  the  same  social  circle  with  Philip,  visiting  the 
same  people,  —  his  house  is  the  twin  of  the  one  Philip  has 
been  furnishing,  —  and  how  shall  he,  with  a  few  hundred 
dollars,  make  his  rooms  even  presentable  beside  those  which 
Philip  has  fitted  up  elegantly  at  three  thousand  ? 

Now  for  the  economy  of  beauty.  Our  friend  must  make 
his  prayer  to  the  Graces,  —  for,  if  they  cannot  save  him, 
nobody  can.  One  thing  John  has  to  begin  with,  that  rare 
gift  to  man,  a  wife  with  the  magic  cestus  of  Venus,  —  not 
around  her  waist,  but,  if  such  a  thing  could  be,  in  her 
finger-ends.  All  that  she  touches  falls  at  once  into  har 
mony  and  proportion.  Her  eye  for  color  and  form  is  intui 
tive  :  let  her  arrange  a  garret,  with  nothing  but  boxes, 
barrels,  and  cast-off  furniture  in  it,  and  ten  to  one  she  makes 
it  seem  the  most  attractive  place  in  the  house.  It  is  a 
veritable  "  gift  of  good  faerie,"  this  tact  of  beautifying  and 
arranging,  that  some  women  have ;  and,  on  the  present  oc 
casion,  it  has  a  real,  material  value,  that  can  be  estimated 
in  dollars  and  cents.  Come  with  us  and  you  can  see  the 
pair  taking  their  survey  of  the  yet  unfurnished  parlors,  as 
busy  and  happy  as  a  couple  of  bluebirds  picking  up  the  first 
sticks  and  straws  for  their  nest. 


THE    ECONOMY   OF   THE   BEAUTIFUL  61 

<e  There  are  two  sunny  windows  to  begin  with,"  says  the 
good  fairy,  with  an  appreciative  glance.  "  That  insures 
flowers  all  winter." 

"  Yes,"  says  John  ;  "I  never  would  look  at  a  house 
without  a  good  sunny  exposure.  Sunshine  is  the  best  orna 
ment  of  a  house,  and  worth  an  extra  thousand  a  year." 

"Now  for  our  wall-paper,"  says  she.  "Have  you  looked 
at  wall-papers,  John  ?  " 

"  Yes  ;  we  shall  get  very  pretty  ones  for  thirty-seven 
cents  a  roll ;  all  you  want  of  a  paper,  you  know,  is  to  make 
a  ground-tint  to  throw  out  your  pictures  and  other  matters, 
and  to  reflect  a  pleasant  tone  of  light." 

"  Well,  John,  you  know  Uncle  James  says  that  a  stone 
color  is  the  best,  but  I  can't  bear  those  cold  blue  grays." 

"  Nor  I,"  says  John.  "  If  we  must  have  gray,  let  it  at 
least  be  a  gray  suffused  with  gold  or  rose  color,  such  as  you 
see  at  evening  in  the  clouds." 

"  So  I  think,"  responds  she  ;  "  but,  better,  I  should  like 
a  paper  with  a  tone  of  buff,  —  something  that  produces 
warm  yellowish  reflections,  and  will  almost  make  you  think 
the  sun  is  shining  in  cold  gray  weather  ;  and  then  there  is 
nothing  that  lights  up  so  cheerfully  in  the  evening.  In 
short,  John,  I  think  the  color  of  a  zafferano  rose  will  be 
just  about  the  shade  we  want." 

"  Well,  I  can  find  that,  in  good  American  paper,  as  I  said 
before,  at  from  thirty-seven  to  forty  cents  a  roll.  Then 
our  bordering  :  there  's  an  important  question,  for  that  must 
determine  the  carpet,  the  chairs,  and  everything  else.  Now 
what  shall  be  the  ground-tint  of  our  rooms  ?  " 

"  There  are  only  two  to  choose  between,"  says  the  lady, 
— "  green  and  maroon :  which  is  the  best  for  the  pic 
ture  ?  " 

"  I  think,"  says  John,  looking  above  the  mantelpiece,  as 
if  he  saw  a  picture  there,  —  "I  think  a  border  of  maroon 
velvet,  with  maroon  furniture,  is  the  best  for  the  picture." 


G2  HOUSE   AND   HOME   PAPERS 

"  I  think  so,  too/'  said  she  ;  "  and  then  we  will  have  that 
lovely  marroon  and  crimson  carpet  that  I  saw  at  Lowe's ; 
it  is  an  ingrain,  to  be  sure,  but  has  a  Brussels  pattern,  a 
mossy,  mixed  figure,  of  different  shades  of  crimson  ;  it  has 
a  good  warm,  strong  color,  and  when  I  come  to  cover  the 
lounges  and  our  two  old  armchairs  with  maroon  rep,  it 
will  make  such  a  pretty  effect." 

"  Yes,"  said  John ;  "  and  then,  you  know,  our  picture  is 
so  bright,  it  will  light  up  the  whole.  Everything  depends 
on  the  picture." 

Now  as  to  "  the  picture,"  it  has  a  story  which  must  be 
told.  John,  having  been  all  his  life  a  worshiper  and  adorer 
of  beauty  and  beautiful  things,  had  never  passed  to  or  from 
his  business  without  stopping  at  the  print-shop  windows, 
and  seeing  a  little  of  what  was  there. 

On  one  of  these  occasions  he  was  smitten  to  the  heart 
with  the  beauty  of  an  autumn  landscape,  where  the  red 
maples  and  sumachs,  the  purple  and  crimson  oaks,  all 
stood  swathed  and  harmonized  together  in  the  hazy  Indian 
summer  atmosphere.  There  was  a  great  yellow  chestnut 
tree,  on  a  distant  hill,  which  stood  out  so  naturally  that 
John  instinctively  felt  his  fingers  tingling  for  a  basket,  and 
his  heels  alive  with  a  desire  to  bound  over  on  to  the  rus 
tling  hillside  and  pick  up  the  glossy  brown  nuts.  Every 
thing  was  there  of  autumn,  even  to  the  goldenrod  and 
purple  asters  and  scarlet  creepers  in  the  foreground. 

John  went  in  and  inquired.  It  was  by  an  unknown 
French  artist,  without  name  or  patrons,  who  had  just  come 
to  our  shores  to  study  our  scenery,  and  this  was  the  first 
picture  he  had  exposed  for  sale.  John  had  just  been  paid 
a  quarter's  salary ;  he  bethought  him  of  board-bill  and 
washerwoman,  sighed,  and  faintly  offered  fifty  dollars. 

To  his  surprise  he  was  taken  up  at  once,  and  the  picture 
became  his.  John  thought  himself  dreaming.  He  exam 
ined  his  treasure  over  and  over,  and  felt  sure  that  it  was 


THE  ECONOMY  OF  THE  BEAUTIFUL        63 

the  work  of  no  amateur  beginner,  but  of  a  trained  hand 
and  a  true  artist  soul.  So  he  found  his  way  to  the  studio 
of  the  stranger,  and  apologized  for  having  got  such  a  gem 
for  so  much  less  than  its  worth.  "  It  was  all  I  could  give, 
though,"  he  said ;  "  and  one  who  paid  four  times  as  much 
could  not  value  it  more."  And  so  John  took  one  and 
another  of  his  friends,  with  longer  purses  than  his  own, 
to  the  studio  of  the  modest  stranger ;  and  now  his  pieces 
command  their  full  worth  in  the  market,  and  he  works  with 
orders  far  ahead  of  his  ability  to  execute,  giving  to  the 
canvas  the  traits  of  American  scenery  as  appreciated  and 
felt  by  the  subtile  delicacy  of  the  French  mind,  —  our 
rural  summer  views,  our  autumn  glories,  and  the  dreamy, 
misty  delicacy  of  our  snowy  winter  landscapes.  Whoso 
would  know  the  truth  of  the  same,  let  him  inquire  for  the 
modest  studio  of  Morvillier,  at  Maiden,  scarce  a  bowshot 
from  our  Boston. 

This  picture  had  always  been  the  ruling  star  of  John's 
house,  his  main  dependence  for  brightening  up  his  bach 
elor  apartments  ;  and  when  he  came  to  the  task  of  furbish 
ing  those  same  rooms  for  a  fair  occupant,  the  picture  was 
still  his  mine  of  gold.  For  a  picture  painted  by  a  real 
artist,  who  studies  Nature  minutely  and  conscientiously, 
has  something  of  the  charm  of  the  good  Mother  herself,  — 
something  of  her  faculty  of  putting  on  different  aspects 
under  different  lights.  John  and  his  wife  had  studied 
their  picture  at  all  hours  of  the  day :  they  had  seen  how 
it  looked  when  the  morning  sun  came  aslant  the  scarlet 
maples  and  made  a  golden  shimmer  over  the  blue  moun 
tains,  how  it  looked  toned  down  in  the  cool  shadows  of 
afternoon,  and  how  it  warmed  up  in  the  sunset  and  died 
off  mysteriously  into  the  twilight;  and  now,  when  larger 
parlors  were  to  be  furnished,  the  picture  was  still  the  tower 
of  strength,  the  rallying-point  of  their  hopes. 

"  Do  you  know,  John,"  said  the  wife,  hesitating,  "  I  am 


64  HOUSE  AND  HOME  PAPERS 

really  in  doubt  whether  Ave  shall  not  have  to  get  at  least  a 
few  new  chairs  and  a  sofa  for  our  parlors  ?  They  are  put 
ting  in  such  splendid  things  at  the  other  door  that  I  am 
positively  ashamed  of  ours ;  the  fact  is,  they  look  almost 
disreputable,  — like  a  heap  of  rubbish." 

"  Well,"  said  John,  laughing,  "  I  don't  suppose  all  to 
gether  sent  to  an  auction-room  would  bring  us  fifty  dollars, 
and  yet,  such  as  they  are,  they  answer  the  place  of  better 
things  for  us ;  and  the  fact  is,  Mary,  the  hard  impassable 
barrier  in  the  case  is  that  there  really  is  no  money  to  get 
any  more." 

"Ah,  well,  then,  if  there  isn't,  we  must  see  what  we 
can  do  with  these,  and  summon  all  the  good  fairies  to  our 
aid,"  said  Mary.  "  There  's  your  little  cabinet-maker,  John, 
will  look  over  the  things  and  furbish  them  up ;  there 's 
that  broken  arm  of  the  chair  must  be  mended,  and  every 
thing  re-varnished ;  then  I  have  found  such  a  lovely  rep, 
of  just  the  richest  shade  of  maroon,  inclining  to  crimson, 
and  when  we  come  to  cover  the  lounges  and  armchairs  and 
sofas  and  ottomans  all  alike,  you  know  they  will  be  quite 
another  thing." 

"  Trust  you  for  that,  Mary !  By  the  bye,  I  've  found 
a  nice  little  woman,  who  has  worked  on  upholstery,  who 
will  come  in  by  the  day,  and  be  the  hands  that  shall  exe 
cute  the  decrees  of  your  taste." 

"  Yes,  I  am  sure  we  shall  get  on  capitally.  Do  you 
know  that  I  'm  almost  glad  we  can't  get  new  things  ?  It 's 
a  sort  of  enterprise  to  see  what  we  can  do  with  old  ones." 

"  Now,  you  see,  Mary,"  said  John,  seating  himself  on  a 
lime-cask  which  the  plasterers  had  left,  and  taking  out  his 
memorandum-book,  —  "  you  see,  I  've  calculated  this  thing 
all  over ;  I  've  found  a  way  by  which  I  can  make  our 
rooms  beautiful  and  attractive  without  a  cent  expended  on 
new  furniture." 

"Well,  let 'shear." 


THE   ECONOMY   OF   THE    BEAUTIFUL  65 

"  Well,  my  way  is  short  and  simple.  We  must  put 
things  into  our  rooms  that  people  will  look  at,  so  that  they 
will  forget  to  look  at  the  furniture,  and  never  once  trouble 
their  heads  about  it.  People  never  look  at  furniture  so 
long  as  there  is  anything  else  to  look  at ;  just  as  Napoleon, 
when  away  on  one  of  his  expeditions,  being  told  that  the 
French  populace  were  getting  disaffected,  wrote  back,  t  Gild 
the  dome  des  Invalides,'  and  so  they  gilded  it,  and  the  peo 
ple,  looking  at  that,  forgot  everything  else.'7 

"  But  I  'm  not  clear  yet,"  said  Mary,  "  what  is  coming 
of  this  rhetoric.'7 

"  Well,  then,  Mary,  I  '11  tell  you.  A  suit  of  new  carved 
black-walnut  furniture,  severe  in  taste  and  perfect  in  style, 
such  as  I  should  choose  at  David  &  Saul's,  could  not  be 
got  under  three  hundred  dollars,  and  I  have  n't  the  three 
hundred  to  give.  What,  then,  shall  we  do  ?  We  must  fall 
back  on  our  resources  ;  we  must  look  over  our  treasures. 
We  have  our  proof  cast  of  the  great  glorious  head  of  the 
Venus  di  Milo  ;  we  have  those  six  beautiful  photographs  of 
Rome,  that  Brown  brought  to  us ;  we  have  the  great  Ger 
man  lithograph  of  the  San  Sisto  Mother  and  Child,  and  we 
have  the  two  angel  heads,  from  the  same  ;  we  have  that 
lovely  golden  twilight  sketch  of  Heade's  ;  we  have  some 
sea  photographs  of  Bradford's ;  we  have  an  original  pen-and- 
ink  sketch  by  Billings  ;  and  then,  as  before,  we  have  '  our 
picture.'  What  has  been  the  use  of  our  watching  at  the  gates 
and  waiting  at  the  doors  of  Beauty  all  our  lives,  if  she  has  n't 
thrown  us  out  a  crust  now  and  then,  so  that  we  might  have 
it  for  time  of  need  ?  Now,  you  see,  Mary,  we  must  make 
the  toilet  of  our  rooms  just  as  a  pretty  woman  makes  hers 
when  money  runs  low,  and  she  sorts  and  freshens  her  rib 
bons,  and  matches  them  to  her  hair  and  eyes,  and,  with  a 
bow  here  and  a  bit  of  fringe  there,  and  a  button  somewhere 
else,  dazzles  us  into  thinking  that  she  has  an  infinity  of 
beautiful  attire.  Our  rooms  are  new  and  pretty  of  them- 


66  HOUSE  AND  HOME  TAPERS 

selves,  to  begin  with  ;  the  tint  of  the  paper,  and  the  rich 
coloring  of  the  border,  corresponding  with  the  furniture  and 
carpets,  will  make  them  seem  prettier.  And  now  for  ar 
rangement.  Take  this  front  room.  I  propose  to  fill  those 
two  recesses  each  side  of  the  fireplace  with  my  books,  in 
their  plain  pine  cases,  just  breast-high  from  the  floor :  they 
are  stained  a  good  dark  color,  and  nobody  need  stick  a  pin 
in  them  to  find  out  that  they  are  not  rosewood.  The  top 
of  these  shelves  on  either  side  to  be  covered  with  the  same 
stuff  as  the  furniture,  finished  with  a  crimson  fringe.  On 
top  of  the  shelves  on  one  side  of  the  fireplace  I  shall  set  our 
noble  Venus  di  Milo,  and  I  shall  buy  at  Cicci's  the  lovely 
Clytie,  and  put  it  the  other  side.  Then  I  shall  get  of  Wil 
liams  &  Everett  two  of  their  chromo  lithographs,  which 
give  you  all  the  style  and  charm  of  the  best  English  water- 
color  school.  I  will  have  the  lovely  Bay  of  Amalfi  over  my 
Venus,  because  she  came  from  those  suns  and  skies  of  south 
ern  Italy,  and  I  will  hang  Lake  Como  over  my  Clytie. 
Then,  in  the  middle,  over  the  fireplace,  shall  be  f  our  pic 
ture.'  Over  each  door  shall  hang  one  of  the  lithographed 
angel  heads  of  the  San  Sisto,  to  watch  our  going  out  and 
coming  in  ;  and  the  glorious  Mother  and  Child  shall  hang 
opposite  the  Venus  di  Milo,  to  show  how  Greek  and  Chris 
tian  unite  in  giving  the  noblest  type  to  womanhood.  And 
then,  when  we  have  all  our  sketches  and  lithographs  framed 
and  hung  here  and  there,  and  your  flowers  blooming  as  they 
always  do,  and  your  ivies  wandering  and  rambling  as  they 
used  to,  and  hanging  in  the  most  graceful  ways  and  places, 
and  all  those  little  shells  and  ferns  and  vases,  which  you  are 
always  conjuring  with,  tastefully  arranged,  I  '11  venture  to 
say  that  our  rooms  will  be  not  only  pleasant,  but  beautiful, 
and  that  people  will  oftener  say,  '  How  beautiful ! '  when 
they  enter,  than  if  we  spent  three  times  the  money  on  new 
furniture." 

In  the  course  of  a  year  after  this  conversation,  one  and 


THE   ECONOMY   OF   THE   BEAUTIFUL  07 

another  of  my  acquaintances  were  often  heard  speaking  of 
John  Morton's  house.  "  Such  beautiful  rooms,  —  so  charm 
ingly  furnished,  —  you  must  go  and  see  them.  What  does 
make  them  so  much  pleasanter  than  those  rooms  in  the 
other  house,  which  have  everything  in  them  that  money  can 
buy  ?  "  So  said  the  folk ;  for  nine  people  out  of  ten  only 
feel  the  effect  of  a  room,  and  never  analyze  the  causes  from 
which  it  flows  :  they  know  that  certain  rooms  seem  dull  and 
heavy  and  confused,  but  they  don't  know  why  ;  that  certain 
others  seem  cheerful,  airy,  and  beautiful,  but  they  know  not 
why.  The  first  exclamation,  on  entering  John's  parlors,  was 
so  often  "  How  beautiful !  "  that  it  became  rather  a  by 
word  in  the  family.  Estimated  by  their  mere  money  value, 
the  articles  in  the  rooms  were  of  very  trifling  worth  ;  but,  as 
they  stood  arranged  and  combined,  they  had  all  the  effect  of 
a  lovely  picture.  Although  the  statuary  was  only  plaster, 
and  the  photographs  and  lithographs  such  as  were  all  within 
the  compass  of  limited  means,  yet  every  one  of  them  was  a 
good  thing  of  its  own  kind,  or  a  good  reminder  of  some  of 
the  greatest  works  of  art.  A  good  plaster  cast  is  a  daguer 
reotype,  so  to  speak,  of  a  great  statue,  though  it  may  be 
bought  for  five  or  six  dollars,  while  its  original  is  not  to  be 
had  for  any  namable  sum.  A  chromo  lithograph  of  the  best 
sort  gives  all  the  style  and  manner  and  effect  of  Turner  or 
Stanfield,  or  any  of  the  best  of  modern  artists,  though  you 
buy  it  for  five  or  ten  dollars,  and  though  the  original  would 
command  a  thousand  guineas.  The  lithographs  from  Ra 
phael's  immortal  picture  give  you  the  results  of  a  whole 
age  of  artistic  culture,  in  a  form  within  the  compass  of  very 
humble  means.  There  is  now  selling  for  five  dollars  at 
Williams  &  Everett's  a  photograph  of  Cheney's  crayon 
drawing  of  the  San  Sisto  Madonna  and  Child,  which  has  the 
very  spirit  of  the  glorious  original.  Such  a  picture,  hung 
against  the  wall  of  a  child's  room,  would  train  its  eye  from 
infancy  ;  and  yet  how  many  will  freely  spend  five  dollars  in 


68  HOUSE  AND  HOME  PAPERS 

embroidery  on  its  dress,  that  say  they  cannot  afford  works 
of  art ! 

There  was  one  advantage  which  John  and  his  wife  found, 
in  the  way  in  which  they  furnished  their  house,  that  I  have 
hinted  at  before:  it  gave  freedom  to  their  children.  Though 
their  rooms  were  beautiful,  it  was  not  with  the  tantaliz 
ing  beauty  of  expensive  and  frail  knick-knacks.  Pictures 
hung  against  the  wall,  and  statuary  safely  lodged  on  brack 
ets,  speak  constantly  to  the  childish  eye,  but  are  out  of 
the  reach  of  childish  fingers,  and  are  not  upset  by  childish 
romps.  They  are  not,  like  china  and  crystal,  liable  to  be 
used  and  abused  by  servants  ;  they  do  not  wear  out  ;  they 
are  not  spoiled  by  dust,  nor  consumed  by  moths.  The 
beauty  once  there  is  always  there  ;  though  the  mother  be 
ill  and  in  her  chamber,  she  has  no  fears  that  she  shall  find  it 
all  wrecked  and  shattered.  And  this  style  of  beauty,  inex 
pensive  as  it  is,  compared  with  luxurious  furniture,  is  a 
means  of  cultivation.  No  child  is  ever  stimulated  to  draw 
or  to  read  by  an  Axminster  carpet  or  a  carved  centre-table  ; 
but  a  room  surrounded  with  photographs  and  pictures  and 
fine  casts  suggests  a  thousand  inquiries,  stimulates  the  little 
eye  and  hand.  The  child  is  found  with  its  pencil,  drawing, 
or  he  asks  for  a  book  on  Venice,  or  wants  to  hear  the  his 
tory  of  the  Eoman  Forum. 

But  I  have  made  my  article  too  long.  I  will  write 
another  on  the  moral  and  intellectual  effects  of  house-fur 
nishing. 

"  I  have  proved  my  point,  Miss  Jenny,  have  I  not  ? 
In  house-furnishing  nothing  is  more  economical  than 
beauty." 

"  Yes,  papa,"  said  Jenny  ;  "  I  give  it  up." 


RAKING   UP   THE   FIRE  69 


RAKING    UP   THE    FIRE 

WE  have  a  custom  at  our  house  which  we  call  raking  up 
the  fire.  That  is  to  say,  the  last  half  hour  before  bedtime, 
we  draw  in,  shoulder  to  shoulder,  around  the  last  brands 
and  embers  of  our  hearth,  which  we  prick  up  and  brighten, 
and  dispose  for  a  few  farewell  flickers  and  glimmers.  This 
is  a  grand  time  for  discussion.  Then  we  talk  over  parties, 
if  the  young  people  have  been  out  of  an  evening,  —  a  book, 
if  we  have  been  reading  one ;  we  discuss  and  analyze  char 
acters, —  give  our  views  on  all  subjects,  aesthetic,  theological, 
and  scientific,  in  a  way  most  wonderful  to  hear;  and,  in 
fact,  we  sometimes  get  so  engaged  in  our  discussions  that 
every  spark  of  the  fire  burns  out,  and  we  begin  to  feel  our 
selves  shivering  around  the  shoulders,  before  we  can  remem 
ber  that  it  is  bedtime. 

So,  after  the  reading  of  my  last  article,  we  had  a  "  raking- 
up  talk,"  -  —  to  wit,  Jenny,  Marianne,  and  I,  with  Bob 
Stephens  :  my  wife,  still  busy  at  her  work-basket,  sat  at 
the  table  a  little  behind  us.  Jenny,  of  course,  opened  the 
ball  in  her  usual  incisive  manner. 

"  But  now,  papa,  after  all  you  say  in  your  piece  there,  I 
cannot  help  feeling  that,  if  I  had  the  taste  and  the  money 
too,  it  would  be  better  than  the  taste  alone  with  no  money. 
I  like  the  nice  arrangements  and  the  books  and  the  draw 
ings,  but  I  think  all  these  would  appear  better  still  with 
really  elegant  furniture." 

"  Who  doubts  that  ?  "  said  I.  "  Give  me  a  large  tub  of 
gold  coin  to  dip  into,  and  the  furnishing  and  beautifying 
of  a  house  is  a  simple  affair.  The  same  taste  that  could 
make  beauty  out  of  cents  and  dimes  could  make  it  more 
abundantly  out  of  dollars  and  eagles.  But  I  have  been 


70  HOUSE  AND  HOME  PAPERS 

speaking  for  those  who  have  not  and  cannot  get  riches,  and 
who  wish  to  have  agreeable  houses ;  and  I  begin  in  the 
outset  by  saying  that  beauty  is  a  thing  to  be  respected, 
reverenced,  and  devoutly  cared  for,  and  then  I  say  that 
BEAUTY  is  CHEAP,  —  nay,  to  put  it  so  that  the  shrewdest 
Yankee  will  understand  it,  —  BEAUTY  is  THE  CHEAPEST 
THING  YOU  CAN  HAVE,  because  in  many  ways  it  is  a  sub 
stitute  for  expense.  A  few  vases  of  flowers  in  a  room,  a 
few  blooming,  well-kept  plants,  a  few  prints  framed  in 
fanciful  frames  of  cheap  domestic  fabric,  a  statuette,  a 
bracket,  an  engraving,  a  pencil-sketch,  —  above  all,  a  few 
choice  books,  —  all  these  arranged  by  a  woman  who  has  the 
gift  in  her  finger-ends,  often  produce  such  an  illusion  on 
the  mind's  eye  that  one  goes  away  without  once  having 
noticed  that  the  cushion  of  the  armchair  was  worn  out,  and 
that  some  veneering  had  fallen  off  the  centre -table. 

"  I  have  a  friend,  a  schoolmistress,  who  lives  in  a  poor 
little  cottage  enough,  which,  let  alone  of  the  Graces,  might 
seem  mean  and  sordid,  but  a  few  flower-seeds  and  a  little 
weeding  in  the  spring  make  it,  all  summer,  an  object  which 
everybody  stops  to  look  at.  Her  aesthetic  soul  was  at  first 
greatly  tried  with  the  water-barrel  which  stood  under  the 
eaves  spout,  —  a  most  necessary  evil,  since  only  thus  could 
her  scanty  supply  of  soft  water  for  domestic  purposes  be 
secured.  One  of  the  Graces,  however,  suggested  to  her 
a  happy  thought.  She  planted  a  row  of  morning-glories 
round  the  bottom  of  her  barrel,  and  drove  a  row  of  tacks 
around  the  top,  and  strung  her  water-butt  with  twine,  like 
a  great  harpsichord.  A  few  weeks  covered  the  twine  with 
blossoming  plants,  which  every  morning  were  a  mass  of 
many-colored  airy  blooms,  waving  in  graceful  sprays,  and 
looking  at  themselves  in  the  water.  The  water-barrel,  in 
fact,  became  a  celebrated  stroke  of  ornamental  gardening, 
which  the  neighbors  came  to  look  at." 

"  Well,  but,"  said  Jenny,  "  everybody  has  n't  mamma's 


EARING   UP   THE   FIRE  71 

faculty  with  flowers.  Flowers  will  grow  for  some  people, 
and  for  some  they  won't.  Nobody  can  see  what  mamma 
does  so  very  much,  but  her  plants  always  look  fresh  and 
thriving  and  healthy,  —  her  things  blossom  just  when  she 
wants  them,  and  do  anything  else  she  wishes  them  to ;  and 
there  are  other  people  that  fume  and  fuss  and  try,  and  their 
things  won't  do  anything  at  all.  There  's  Aunt  Easygo 
has  plant  after  plant  brought  from  the  greenhouse,  and 
hanging  -  baskets,  and  all  sorts  of  things ;  but  her  plants 
grow  yellow  and  drop  their  leaves,  and  her  hanging-baskets 
get  dusty  and  poverty-stricken,  while  mamma's  go  on  nour 
ishing  as  heart  could  desire." 

"  I  can  tell  you  what  your  mother  puts  into  her  plants," 
said  I,  —  "just  what  she  has  put  into  her  children,  and  all 
her  other  home-things,  — her  heart.  She  loves  them  ;  she 
lives  in  them ;  she  has  in  herself  a  plant-life  and  a  plant- 
sympathy.  She  feels  for  them  as  if  she  herself  were  a 
plant ;  she  anticipates  their  wants,  —  always  remembers 
them  without  an  effort,  and  so  the  care  flows  to  them  daily 
and  hourly.  She  hardly  knows  when  she  does  the  things 
that  make  them  grow,  but  she  gives  them  a  minute  a  hun 
dred  times  a  day.  She  moves  this  nearer  the  glass,  — 
draws  that  back,  —  detects  some  thief  of  a  worm  on  one,  — 
digs  at  the  root  of  another,  to  see  why  it  droops,  —  washes 
these  leaves  and  sprinkles  those,  —  waters,  and  refrains 
from  watering,  all  with  the  habitual  care  of  love.  Your 
mother  herself  does  n't  know  why  her  plants  grow  ;  it 
takes  a  philosopher  and  a  writer  for  the  (  Atlantic '  to  tell 
her  what  the  cause  is." 

Here  I  saw  my  wife  laughing  over  her  work-basket  as 
she  answered,  — 

"  Girls,  one  of  these  days  /  will  write  an  article  for  the 
( Atlantic,'  that  your  papa  need  not  have  all  the  say  to  him 
self  ;  however,  I  believe  he  has  hit  the  nail  on  the  head 
this  time." 


72  HOUSE  AND  HOME  PAPERS 

"  Of  course  he  has/'  said  Marianne.  "  But,  mamma,  I 
am  afraid  to  begin  to  depend  much  on  plants  for  the  beauty 
of  my  rooms,  for  fear  I  should  not  have  your  gift,  —  and, 
of  all  forlorn  and  hopeless  things  in  a  room,  ill-kept  plants 
are  the  most  so."* 

"I  would  not  recommend,"  said  I,  "a  young  house 
keeper,  just  beginning,  to  rest  much  for  her  home  orna 
ment  on  plant-keeping,  unless  she  has  an  experience  of  her 
own  love  and  talent  in  this  line  which  makes  her  sure  of 
success  ;  for  plants  will  not  thrive  if  they  are  forgotten  or 
overlooked,  and  only  tended  in  occasional  intervals  ;  and, 
as  Marianne  says,  neglected  plants  are  the  most  forlorn  of 
all  things." 

"But,  papa,"  said  Marianne  anxiously,  "there,  in  those 
patent  parlors  of  John's  that  you  wrote  of,  flowers  acted  a 
great  part." 

"  The  charm  of  those  parlors  of  John's  may  be  chemi 
cally  analyzed,"  I  said.  "  In  the  first  place,  there  is  sun 
shine,  a  thing  that  always  affects  the  human  nerves  of  hap 
piness.  Why  else  is  it  that  people  are  always  so  glad  to 
see  the  sun  after  a  long  storm  ?  why  are  bright  days  mat 
ters  of  such  congratulation  ?  Sunshine  fills  a  house  with 
a  thousand  beautiful  and  fanciful  effects  of  light  and  shade, 
—  with  soft,  luminous,  reflected  radiances,  that  give  pictur 
esque  effects  to  the  pictures,  books,  statuettes  of  an  interior. 
John,  happily,  had  no  money  to  buy  brocatelle  curtains, 
and,  besides  this,  he  loved  sunshine  too  much  to  buy  them, 
if  he  could.  He  had  been  enough  with  artists  to  know 
that  heavy  damask  curtains  darken  precisely  that  part  of  the 
window  where  the  light  proper  for  pictures  and  statuary 
should  come  in,  namely,  the  upper  part.  The  fashionable 
system  of  curtains  lights  only  the  legs  of  the  chairs  and  the 
carpets,  and  leaves  all  the  upper  portion  of  the  room  in 
shadow.  John's  windows  have  shades  which  can  at  pleas 
ure  be  drawn  down  from  the  top  or  up  from  the  bottom, 


RAKING   UP   THE   FIRE  73 

so  that  the  best  light  to  be  had  may  always  be  arranged  for 
his  little  interior." 

"  Well,  papa/7  said  Marianne,  "  in  your  chemical  analysis 
of  John's  rooms,  what  is  the  next  thing  to  the  sunshine  ?  " 

"  The  next/7  said  I,  "  is  harmony  of  color.  The  wall 
paper,  the  furniture,  the  carpets,  are  of  tints  that  harmo 
nize  with  one  another.  This  is  a  grace  in  rooms  always, 
and  one  often  neglected.  The  French  have  an  expressive 
phrase  with  reference  to  articles  which  are  out  of  accord, 
—  they  say  that  they  swear  at  each  other.  I  have  been  in 
rooms  where  I  seemed  to  hear  the  wall-paper  swearing  at 
the  carpet,  and  the  carpet  swearing  back  at  the  wall-paper, 
and  each  article  of  furniture  swearing  at  the  rest.  These 
appointments  may  all  of  them  be  of  the  most  expensive 
kind,  but  with  such  dis-harmony  no  arrangement  can  ever 
produce  anything  but  a  vulgar  and  disagreeable  effect.  On 
the  other  hand,  I  have  been  in  rooms  where  all  the  material 
was  cheap  and  the  furniture  poor,  but  where,  from  some  in 
stinctive  knowledge  of  the  reciprocal  effect  of  colors,  every 
thing  was  harmonious,  and  produced  a  sense  of  elegance. 

"  I  recollect  once  traveling  on  a  Western  canal  through 
a  long  stretch  of  wilderness,  and  stopping  to  spend  the 
night  at  an  obscure  settlement  of  a  dozen  houses.  We 
were  directed  to  lodgings  in  a  common  frame  house  at  a 
little  distance,  where,  it  seemed,  the  only  hotel  was  kept. 
When  we  entered  the  parlor,  we  were  struck  with  utter 
amazement  at  its  prettiness,  which  affected  us  before  we 
began  to  ask  ourselves  how  it  came  to  be  pretty.  It  was, 
in  fact,  only  one  of  the  miracles  of  harmonious  color  work 
ing  with  very  simple  materials.  Some  woman  had  been 
busy  there,  who  had  both  eyes  and  ringers.  The  sofa,  the 
common  wooden  rocking-chairs,  and  some  ottomans,  proba 
bly  made  of  old  soap-boxes,  Avere  all  covered  with  American 
nankeen  of  a  soft  yellowish-brown,  with  a  bordering  of 
blue  print.  The  window-shades,  the  table-cover,  and  the 


74  HOUSE  AND  HOME  PAPERS 

piano-cloth  all  repeated  the  same  colors,  in  the  same  cheap 
material.  A  simple  straw  matting  was  laid  over  the  floor, 
and,  with  a  few  books,  a  vase  of  flowers,  and  one  or  two 
prints,  the  room  had  a  home-like  and  even  elegant  air,  that 
struck  us  all  the  more  forcibly  from  its  contrast  with  the 
usual  tawdry,  slovenly  style  of  such  parlors. 

"  The  means  used  for  getting  up  this  effect  were  the 
most  inexpensive  possible,  —  simply  the  following  out,  in 
cheap  material,  a  law  of  uniformity  and  harmony,  which 
always  will  produce  beauty.  In  the  same  manner,  1  have 
seen  a  room  furnished,  whose  effect  was  really  gorgeous  in 
color,  where  the  only  materials  used  were  Turkey-red  cotton 
and  a  simple  ingrain  carpet  of  corresponding  color. 

"Now,  you  girls  have  been  busy  lately  in  schemes  for 
buying  a  velvet  carpet  for  the  new  parlor  that  is  to  be,  and 
the  only  points  that  have  seemed  to  weigh  in  the  council 
were  that  it  was  velvet,  that  it  was  cheaper  than  velvets 
usually  are,  and  that  it  was  a  genteel  pattern.'7 

"  Now,  papa,"  said  Jenny,  "  what  ears  you  have  !  We 
thought  you  were  reading  all  the  time  !  " 

"  I  see  what  you  are  going  to  say,"  said  Marianne. 
"You  think  that  we  have  not  once  mentioned  the  con 
sideration  which  should  determine  the  carpet,  whether  it 
will  harmonize  with  our  other  things.  But  you  see,  papa, 
we  don't  really  know  what  our  other  things  are  to  be." 

"  Yes,"  said  Jenny,  "  and  Aunt  Easy  go  said  it  was  an 
unusually  good  chance  to  get  a  velvet  carpet." 

"  Yet,  good  as  the  chance  is,  it  costs  just  twice  as  much 
as  an  ingrain." 

"  Yes,  papa,  it  does." 

"  And  you  are  not  sure  that  the  effect  of  it,  after  you 
get  it  down,  will  be  as  good  as  a  well-chosen  ingrain  one." 

"  That 's  true,"  said  Marianne  reflectively. 

"  But  then,  papa,"  said  Jenny,  "  Aunt  Easygo  said  she 
never  heard  of  such  a  bargain  ;  only  think,  two  dollars  a 
yard  for  a  velvet !  " 


RAKING   UP   THE   FIRE  75 

"  And  why  is  it  two  dollars  a  yard  ?  Is  the  man  a  per 
sonal  friend,  that  he  wishes  to  make  you  a  present  of  a 
dollar  on  the  yard,  or  is  there  some  reason  why  it  is  unde 
sirable  ?  "  said  I. 

"  Well,  you  know,  papa,  he  said  those  large  patterns 
were  not  so  salable." 

"To  tell  the  truth,"  said  Marianne,  "I  never  did  like 
the  pattern  exactly  ;  as  to  uniformity  of  tint,  it  might 
match  with  anything,  for  there  's  every  color  of  the  rainbow 
in  it." 

"  You  see,  papa,  it 's  a  gorgeous  flower-pattern,"  said 
Jenny. 

"  Well,  Marianne,  how  many  yards  of  this  wonderfully 
cheap  carpet  do  you  want  ?  " 

"  We  want  sixty  yards  for  both  rooms,"  said  Jenny, 
always  primed  with  statistics. 

"  That  will  be  a  hundred  and  twenty  dollars,"  I  said. 

"  Yes,"  said  Jenny ;  "  and  we  went  over  the  figures 
together,  and  thought  we  could  make  it  out  by  economizing 
in  other  things.  Aunt  Easygo  said  that  the  carpet  was 
half  the  battle,  —  that  it  gave  the  air  to  everything  else." 

"  Well,  Marianne,  if  you  want  a  man's  advice  in  the 
case,  mine  is  at  your  service." 

"That  is  just  what  I  want,  papa." 

"  Well,  then,  my  dear,  choose  your  wall-papers  and  bor- 
derings,  and,  when  they  are  up,  choose  an  ingrain  carpet  to 
harmonize  with  them,  and  adapt  your  furniture  to  the  same 
idea.  The  sixty  dollars  that  you  save  on  your  carpet  spend 
on  engravings,  chromo  lithographs,  or  photographs  of  some 
good  works  of  art,  to  adorn  your  walls." 

"  Papa,  I  '11  do  it,"  said  Marianne. 

"  My  little  dear,"  said  I,  "  your  papa  may  seem  to  be  a 
sleepy  old  book-worm,  yet  he  has  his  eyes  open.  Do  you 
think  I  don't  know  why  my  girls  have  the  credit  of  being 
the  best-dressed  girls  on  the  street  ?  " 


76  HOUSE  AND  HOME  PAPERS 

"  Oh  papa  !  "   cried  out  both  girls  in  a  breath. 

"  Fact,  that !  "  said  Bob,  with  energy,  pulling  at  his 
mustache.  "  Everybody  talks  about  your  dress,  and  won 
ders  how  you  make  it  out." 

"  Well,"  said  I,  "  I  presume  you  do  not  go  into  a  shop 
and  buy  a  yard  of  ribbon  because  it  is  selling  at  half  price, 
and  put  it  o-n  without  considering  complexion,  eyes,  hair, 
and  shade  of  the  dress,  do  you  ?  " 

"  Of  course  we  don't  !  "   chimed  in  the  duo  with  energy. 

"  Of  course  you  don't.  Have  n't  I  seen  you  mincing 
downstairs,  with  all  your  colors  harmonized,  even  to  your 
gloves  and  gaiters  ?  Now,  a  room  must  be  dressed  as  care 
fully  as  a  lady." 

"  Well,  I  'm  convinced,"  said  Jenny,  "  that  papa  knows 
how  to  make  rooms  prettier  than  Aunt  Easygo  ;  but  then 
she  said  this  was  cheap,  because  it  would  outlast  two  com 
mon  carpets." 

"  But,  as  you  pay  double  price,"  said  I,  "  I  don't  see  that. 
Besides,  I  would  rather,  in  the  course  of  twenty  years,  have 
two  nice,  fresh  ingrain  carpets,  of  just  the  color  and  pattern 
that  suited  my  rooms,  than  labor  along  with  one  ill-chosen 
velvet  that  harmonized  with  nothing." 

"  I  give  it  up,"  said  Jenny  ;   "  I  give  it  up." 

"Now,  understand  me,"  said  I;  "I  am  not  traducing 
velvet  or  Brussels  or  Axminster.  I  admit  that  more  beauti 
ful  effects  can  be  found  in  those  goods  than  in  the  humbler 
fabrics  of  the  carpet  rooms.  Nothing  would  delight  me 
more  than  to  put  an  unlimited  credit  to  Marianne's  account, 
and  let  her  work  out  the  problems  of  harmonious  color  in 
velvet  and  damask.  All  I  have  to  say  is,  that  certain  uni 
ties  of  color,  certain  general  arrangements,  will  secure  very 
nearly  as  good  general  effects  in  either  material.  A  library 
with  a  neat,  mossy  green  carpet  on  the  floor,  harmonizing 
with  wall-paper  and  furniture,  looks  generally  as  well,  whe 
ther  the  mossy  green  is  made  in  Brussels  or  in  ingrain.  In 


RAKING   UP   THE   FIRE  77 

the  carpet  stores,  these  two  materials  stand  side  by  side  in 
the  very  same  pattern,  and  one  is  often  as  good  for  the  pur 
pose  as  the  other.  A  lady  of  my  acquaintance,  some  years 
since,  employed  an  artist  to  decorate  her  parlors.  The 
walls  being  frescoed  and  tinted  to  suit  his  ideal,  he  imme 
diately  issued  his  decree  that  her  splendid  velvet  carpets 
must  be  sent  to  auction,  and  others  bought  of  certain  col 
ors  harmonizing  with  the  walls.  Unable  to  find  exactly 
the  color  and  pattern  he  wanted,  he  at  last  had  the  carpets 
woven  in  a  neighboring  factory,  where,  as  yet,  they  had  only 
the  art  of  weaving  ingrains.  Thus  was  the  material  sacri 
ficed  at  once  to  the  harmony." 

I  remarked,  in  passing,  that  this  was  before  Bigelow's 
mechanical  genius  had  unlocked  for  America  the  higher 
secrets  of  carpet-weaving,  and  made  it  possible  to  have  one's 
desires  accomplished  in  Brussels  or  velvet.  In  those  days, 
English  carpet-weavers  did  not  send  to  America  for  their 
looms,  as  they  now  do. 

"  But  now  to  return  to  my  analysis  of  John's  rooms. 

"  Another  thing  which  goes  a  great  way  towards  giving 
them  their  agreeable  air  is  the  books  in  them.  Some  peo 
ple  are  fond  of  treating  books  as  others  do  children.  One 
room  in  the  house  is  selected,  and  every  book  driven  into  it 
and  kept  there.  Yet  nothing  makes  a  room  so  home-like, 
so  companionable,  and  gives  it  such  an  air  of  refinement,  as 
the  presence  of  books.  They  change  the  aspect  of  a  parlor 
from  that  of  a  mere  reception-room,  where  visitors  perch  for 
a  transient  call,  and  give  it  the  air  of  a  room  where  one 
feels  like  taking  off  one's  things  to  stay.  It  gives  the  ap 
pearance  of  permanence  and  repose  and  quiet  fellowship  ; 
and,  next  to  pictures  on  the  walls,  the  many-colored  bind 
ings  and  gildings  of  books  are  the  most  agreeable  adornment 
of  a  room." 

"  Then,  Marianne,"  said  Bob,  "  we  have  something  to 
start  with,  at  all  events.  There  are  my  English  Classics 


78  HOUSE  AND  HOME  PAPERS 

and  English  Poets,  and  my  uniform  editions  of  Scott  and 
Thackeray  and  Macaulay  and  Prescott  and  Irving  and  Long 
fellow  and  Lowell  and  Hawthorne  and  Holmes  and  a  host 
more.  We  really  have  something  pretty  there." 

"  You  are  a  lucky  girl,"  I  said,  "  to  have  so  much 
secured.  A  girl  brought  up  in  a  house  full  of  books,  al 
ways  able  to  turn  to  this  or  that  author  and  look  for  any 
passage  or  poem  when  she  thinks  of  it,  does  n't  know  what 
a  blank  a  house  without  books  might  be." 

"  Well,"  said  Marianne,  "  mamma  and  I  were  counting 
over  my  treasures  the  other  day.  Do  you  know,  I  have 
one  really  fine  old  engraving,  that  Bob  says  is  quite  a  gen 
uine  thing  ;  and  then  there  is  that  pencil-sketch  that  poor 
Scheme  made  for  me  the  month  before  he  died,  —  it  is  truly 
artistic." 

"  And  I  have  a  couple  of  capital  things  of  Landseer's," 
said  Bob. 

"There  's  no  danger  that  your  rooms  will  not  be  pretty," 
said  I,  "  now  you  are  fairly  on  the  right  track." 

"  But,  papa,"  said  Marianne,  "  I  am  troubled  about  one 
thing.  My  love  of  beauty  runs  into  everything.  I  want 
pretty  things  for  my  table  ;  and  yet,  as  you  say,  servants 
are  so  careless,  one  cannot  use  such  things  freely  without 
great  waste." 

"  For  my  part,"  said  my  wife,  "  I  believe  in  best  china, 
to  be  kept  carefully  on  an  upper  shelf,  and  taken  down  for 
high-days  and  holidays ;  it  may  be  a  superstition,  but  I  be 
lieve  in  it.  It  must  never  be  taken  out  except  when  the 
mistress  herself  can  see  that  it  is  safely  cared  for.  My 
mother  always  washed  her  china  herself ;  and  it  was  a  very 
pretty  social  ceremony,  after  tea  was  over,  while  she  sat 
among  us  washing  her  pretty  cups,  and  wiping  them  on  a 
fine  damask  towel." 

"  With  all  my  heart,"  said  I ;  "  have  your  best  china 
and  venerate  it,  —  it  is  one  of  the  loveliest  of  domestic  super- 


RAKING   UP   THE   FIRE  79 

stitions ;  only  do  not  make  it  a  bar  to  hospitality,  and 
shrink  from  having  a  friend  to  tea  with  you,  unless  you 
feel  equal  to  getting  up  to  the  high  shelf  where  you  keep 
it,  getting  it  down,  washing,  and  putting  it  up  again. 

"  But  in  serving  a  table,  I  say,  as  I  said  of  a  house, 
beauty  is  a  necessity,  and  beauty  is  cheap.  Because  you 
cannot  afford  beauty  in  one  form,  it  does  not  follow  that 
you  cannot  have  it  in  another.  Because  one  cannot  afford 
to  keep  up  a  perennial  supply  of  delicate  china  and  crystal, 
subject  to  the  accidents  of  raw,  untrained  servants,  it  does 
not  follow  that  the  every-day  table  need  present  a  sordid 
assortment  of  articles  chosen  simply  for  cheapness,  while 
the  whole  capacity  of  the  purse  is  given  to  the  set  forever 
locked  away  for  state  occasions. 

"  A  table-service  all  of  simple  white,  of  graceful  forms, 
even  though  not  of  china,  if  arranged  with  care,  with  snowy, 
well  -  kept  table-linen,  clear  glasses,  and  bright  American 
plate  in  place  of  solid  silver,  may  be  made  to  look  invit 
ing  ;  add  a  glass  of  flowers  every  day,  and  your  table  may 
look  pretty  :  and  it  is  far  more  important  that  it  should 
look  pretty  for  the  family  every  day  than  for  company  once 
in  two  weeks." 

"  I  tell  my  girls,"  said  my  wife,  "  as  the  result  of  my 
experience,  you  may  have  your  pretty  china  and  your  lovely 
fanciful  articles  for  the  table  only  so  long  as  you  can  take  all 
the  care  of  them  yourselves.  As  soon  as  you  get  tired  of 
doing  this,  and  put  them  into  the  hands  of  the  trustiest  ser 
vants,  some  good,  well-meaning  creature  is  sure  to  break  her 
heart  and  your  own  and  your  very  pet  darling  china  pitcher 
all  in  one  and  the  same  minute,  and  then  her  frantic  de 
spair  leaves  you  not  even  the  relief  of  scolding." 

"  I  have  become  perfectly  sure,"  said  I  "  that  there  are 
spiteful  little  brownies,  intent  on  seducing  good  women  to 
sin,  who  mount  guard  over  the  special  idols  of  the  china 
closet.  If  you  hear  a  crash,  and  a  loud  Irish  wail  from 


80  HOUSE  AND  HOME  PAPERS 

the  inner  depths,  you  never  think  of  its  being  a  yellow  pie- 
plate,  or  that  dreadful  one-handled  tureen  that  you  have 

been  wishing  were  broken  these  five  years ;  no,  indeed, 

it  is  sure  to  be  the  lovely  painted  china  bowl,  wreathed  with 
morning-glories  and  sweet-peas,  or  the  engraved  glass  gob 
let,  with  quaint  Old  English  initials.  China  sacrificed  must 
be  a  great  means  of  saintship  to  women.  Pope,  I  think, 
puts  it  as  the  crowning  grace  of  his  perfect  woman  that  she 
is 

"  'Mistress  of  herself  though  china  fall.'  " 

"  I  ought  to  be  a  saint  by  this  time,  then,"  said  mamma ; 
"  for  in  the  course  of  my  days  I  have  lost  so  many  idols  by 
breakage,  and  peculiar  accidents  that  seemed  by  a  special 
fatality  to  befall  my  prettiest  and  most  irreplaceable  things, 
that  in  fact  it  has  come  to  be  a  superstitious  feeling  now 
with  which  I  regard  anything  particularly  pretty  of  a  break 
able  nature." 

"  Well,"  said  Marianne,  "  unless  one  has  a  great  deal  of 
money,  it  seems  to  me  that  the  investment  in  these  pretty 
fragilities  is  rather  a  poor  one." 

"  Yet,"  said  I,  "  the  principle  of  beauty  is  never  so  cap 
tivating  as  when  it  presides  over  the  hour  of  daily  meals. 
I  would  have  the  room  where  they  are  served  one  of  the 
pleasantest  and  sunniest  in  the  house.  I  would  have  its 
coloring  cheerful,  and  there  should  be  companionable  pic 
tures  and  engravings  on  the  walls.  Of  all  things,  I  dislike 
a  room  that  seems  to  be  kept,  like  a  restaurant,  merely  to 
eat  in.  I  like  to  see  in  a  dining-room  something  that  be 
tokens  a  pleasant  sitting-room  at  other  hours.  I  like  there 
some  books,  a  comfortable  sofa  or  lounge,  and  all  that  should 
make  it  cosy  and  inviting.  The  custom  in  some  families, 
of  adopting  for  the  daily  meals  one  of  the  two  parlors  which 
a  city  house  furnishes,  has  often  seemed  to  me  a  particularly 
happy  one.  You  take  your  meals,  then,  in  an  agreeable 


RAKING   UP  THE   FIRE  81 

place,  surrounded  by  the  little  pleasant  arrangements  of 
your  daily  sitting-room  ;  and  after  the  meal,  if  the  lady  of 
the  house  does  the  honors  of  her  own  pretty  china  herself, 
the  office  may  be  a  pleasant  and  social  one. 

"  But  in  regard  to  your  table-service  I  have  my  advice 
at  hand.  Invest  in  pretty  table-linen,  in  delicate  napkins, 
have  your  vase  of  flowers,  and  be  guided  by  the  eye  of 
taste  in  the  choice  and  arrangement  of  even  the  every-day 
table  articles,  and  have  no  ugly  things  when  you  can  have 
pretty  ones  by  taking  a  little  thought.  If  you  are  sore 
tempted  with  lovely  china  and  crystal,  too  fragile  to  last, 
too  expensive  to  be  renewed,  turn  away  to  a  print-shop  and 
comfort  yourself  by  hanging  around  the  walls  of  your  dining- 
room  beauty  that  will  not  break  or  fade,  that  will  meet  your 
eye  from  year  to  year,  though  plates,  tumblers,  and  teasets 
successively  vanish.  There  is  my  advice  for  you,  Mari 
anne." 

At  the  same  time  let  me  say,  in  parenthesis,  that  my 
wife,  whose  weakness  is  china,  informed  me  that  night, 
when  we  were  by  ourselves,  that  she  was  ordering  secretly  a 
teaset  as  a  bridal  gift  for  Marianne  every  cup  of  which  was 
to  be  exquisitely  painted  with  the  wild  flowers  of  America, 
from  designs  of  her  own,  —  a  thing,  by  the  by,  that  can  now 
be  very  nicely  executed  in  our  country,  as  one  may  find  by 
looking  in  at  our  friend  Briggs's  on  School  Street.  "  It  will 
last  her  all  her  life,"  she  said,  "  and  always  be  such  a  pleas 
ure  to  look  at ;  and  a  pretty  tea-table  is  such  a  pretty 
sight !  "  So  spoke  Mrs.  Crowfield,  "  un weaned  from  china 
by  a  thousand  falls."  She  spoke  even  with  tears  in  her 
eyes.  Verily  these  women  are  harps  of  a  thousand  strings ! 

But  to  return  to  my  subject. 

"  Finally  and  lastly,"  I  said,  "  in  my  analysis  and  ex 
plication  of  the  agreeableness  of  those  same  parlors,  comes 
the  growing  grace,  —  their  homeliness.  By  (  homeliness'  I 
mean  not  ugliness,  as  the  word  is  apt  to  be  used,  but  the 


82  HOUSE  AND  HOME  PAPERS 

air  that  is  given  to  a  room  by  being  really  at  home  in 
it.  Not  the  most  skillful  arrangement  can  impart  this 
charm. 

"It  is  said  that  a  king  of  France  once  remarked,  '  My 
son,  you  must  seem  to  love  your  people.' 

"  '  Father,  how  shall  I  seem  to  love  them  ? ' 

"  l  My  son,  you  must  love  them.' 

"  So,  to  make  rooms  seem  home-like,  you  must  be  at  home 
in  them.  Human  light  and  warmth  are  so  wanting  in 
some  rooms,  it  is  so  evident  that  they  are  never  used, 
that  you  can  never  be  at  ease  there.  In  vain  the  house 
maid  is  taught  to  wheel  the  sofa  and  turn  chair  toward 
chair  ;  in  vain  it  is  attempted  to  imitate  a  negligent  arrange 
ment  of  the  centre-table. 

"  Books  that  have  really  been  read  and  laid  down,  chairs 
that  have  really  been  moved  here  and  there  in  the  animation 
of  social  contact,  have  a  sort  of  human  vitality  in  them  ; 
and  a  room  in  which  people  really  live  and  enjoy  is  as  differ 
ent  from  a  shut-up  apartment  as  a  live  woman  from  a  wax 
image. 

"Even  rooms  furnished  without  taste  often  become  charm 
ing  from  this  one  grace,  that  they  seem  to  let  you  into 
the  home  life  and  home  current.  You  seem  to  understand 
in  a  moment  that  you  are  taken  into  the  family,  and  are 
moving  in  its  inner  circles,  and  not  revolving  at  a  distance 
in  some  outer  court  of  the  gentiles. 

"  How  many  people  do  we  call  on  from  year  to  year  and 
know  no  more  of  their  feelings,  habits,  tastes,  family  ideas 
and  ways,  than  if  they  lived  in  Kamtschatka !  And  why  ? 
Because  the  room  which  they  call  a  front  parlor  is  made 
expressly  so  that  you  never  shall  know.  They  sit  in  a 
back  room,  —  work,  talk,  read,  perhaps.  After  the  servant 
has  let  you  in  and  opened  a  crack  of  the  shutters,  and  while 
you  sit  waiting  for  them  to  change  their  dress  and  come  in, 
you  speculate  as  to  what  they  may  be  doing.  From  some 


RAKING   UP    THE   FIRE  83 

distant  region,  the  laugh  of  a  child,  the  song  of  a  canary- 
bird  reaches  you,  and  then  a  door  claps  hastily  to.  Do 
they  love  plants  ?  Do  they  write  letters,  sew,  embroider, 
crochet  ?  Do  they  ever  romp  and  frolic  ?  What  books  do 
they  read  ?  Do  they  sketch  or  paint  ?  Of  all  these  pos 
sibilities  the  mute  and  muffled  room  says  nothing.  A  sofa 
and  six  chairs,  two  ottomans  fresh  from  the  upholsterer's, 
a  Brussels  carpet,  a  centre-table  with  four  gilt  Books  of 
Beauty  on  it,  a  mantel-clock  from  Paris,  and  two  bronze 
vases,  —  all  these  tell  you  only  in  frigid  tones,  '  This  is  the 
best  room,'  —  only  that,  and  nothing  more,  —  and  soon  she 
trips  in  in  her  best  clothes,  and  apologizes  for  keeping  you 
waiting,  asks  how  your  mother  is,  and  you  remark  that  it 
is  a  pleasant  day,  and  thus  the  acquaintance  progresses  from 
year  to  year.  One  hour  in  the  back  room,  where  the  plants 
and  canary-bird  and  children  are,  might  have  made  you  fast 
friends  for  life  ;  but,  little  as  it  is,  you  care  no  more  for 
them  than  for  the  gilt  clock  on  the  mantel. 

"  And  now,  girls,"  said  I,  pulling  a  paper  out  of  my 
pocket,  "  you  must  know  that  your  father  is  getting  to  be 
famous  by  means  of  these  '  House  and  Home  Papers.' 
Here  is  a  letter  I  have  just  received  :  — 

"  MOST  EXCELLENT  MR.  CROWFIELD,  —  Y6ur  thoughts 
have  lighted  into  our  family  circle  and  echoed  from  our 
fireside.  We  all  feel  the  force  of  them,  and  are  delighted 
with  the  felicity  of  your  treatment  of  the  topic  you  have 
chosen.  You  have  taken  hold  of  a  subject  that  lies  deep 
in  our  hearts,  in  a  genial,  temperate,  and  convincing  spirit. 
All  must  acknowledge  the  power  of  your  sentiments  upon 
their  imaginations  ;  if  they  could  only  trust  to  them  in 
actual  life  !  There  is  the  rub. 

"  Omitting  further  upon  these  points,  there  is  a  special 
feature  of  your  articles  upon  which  we  wish  to  address  you. 
You  seem  as  yet  (we  do  not  know,  of  course,  what  you  may 


84  HOUSE   AND    HOME    PAl'EKS 

hereafter  do)  to  speak  only  of  homes  whose  conduct  depends 
upon  the  help  of  servants.  Now  your  principles  apply,  as 
some  of  us  well  conceive,  to  nearly  all  classes  of  society  ; 
yet  most  people,  to  take  an  impressive  hint,  must  have  their 
portraits  drawn  out  more  exactly.  We  therefore  hope  that 
you  will  give  a  reasonable  share  of  your  attention  to  us  who 
do  not  employ  servants,  so  that  you  may  ease  us  of  some  of 
our  burdens,  which,  in  spite  of  common  sense,  we  dare  not 
throw  off.  For  instance,  we  have  company,  —  a  friend  from 
afar  (perhaps  wealthy),  or  a  minister,  or  some  other  man  of 
note.  What  do  we  do  ?  Sit  down  and  receive  our  visitor 
with  all  good-will  and  the  freedom  of  a  home  ?  No  ;  we 
(the  lady  of  the  house)  flutter  about  to  clear  up  things,  apol 
ogizing  about  this,  that,  and  the  other  condition  of  unpre- 
paredness,  and,  having  settled  the  visitor  in  the  parlor,  set 
about  marshaling  the  elements  of  a  grand  dinner  or  supper, 
such  as  no  person  but  a  gourmand  wants  to  sit  down  to, 
when  at  home  and  comfortable  ;  and  in  getting  up  this 
meal,  clearing  away  and  washing  the  dishes,  we  use  up  a 
good  half  of  the  time  which  our  guest  spends  with  us.  We 
have  spread  ourselves,  and  shown  him  what  we  could  do  ; 
but  what  a  paltry,  heart-sickening  achievement !  Now,  good 
Mr.  Crowfield,  thou  friend  of  the  robbed  and  despairing,  wilt 
thou  not  descend  into  our  purgatorial  circle,  and  tell  the 
world  what  thou  hast  seen  there  of  doleful  remembrance  ? 
Tell  us  how  we,  who  must  do  and  desire  to  do  our  own 
work,  can  show  forth  in  our  homes  a  homely  yet  genial  hos 
pitality,  and  entertain  oar  guests  without  making  a  fuss 
and  hurlyburly,  and  seeming  to  be  anxious  for  their  sake 
about  many  things,  and  spending  too  much  time  getting 
meals,  as  if  eating  were  the  chief  social  pleasure.  Won't 
you  do  this,  Mr.  Crowfield  ? 

"  Yours  beseechingly, 

"B.  H.  A." 


THE   LADY   WHO   DOES    HER   OWN   WORK  85 

"  That 's  a  good  letter,"  said  Jenny. 

"  To  be  sure  it  is/7  said  I. 

"  And  shall  you  answer  it,  papa  ?  " 

"  In  the  very  next  '  Atlantic,'  you  may  be  sure  I  shall. 
The  class  that  do  their  own  work  are  the  strongest,  the 
most  numerous,  and,  taking  one  thing  with  another,  quite 
as  well  cultivated  a  class  as  any  other.  They  are  the 
anomaly  of  our  country,  —  the  distinctive  feature  of  the 
new  society  that  we  are  building  up  here  j  and,  if  we  are  to 
accomplish  our  national  destiny,  that  class  must  increase 
rather  than  diminish.  I  shall  certainly  do  my  best  to  an 
swer  the  very  sensible  and  pregnant  questions  of  that  let 
ter." 

Here  Marianne  shivered  and  drew  up  a  shawl,  and  Jenny 
gaped  ;  my  wife  folded  up  the  garment  in  which  she  had 
set  the  last  stitch,  and  the  clock  struck  twelve. 

Bob  gave  a  low  whistle.      "  Who  knew  it  was  so  late  ?  " 

"  We  have  talked  the  fire  fairly  out,"  said  Jenny. 


VI 

THE    LADY    WHO    DOES    HER    OWN    WORK 

"  My  dear  Chris,"  said  my  wife,  "  is  n't  it  time  to  be 
writing  the  next  (  House  and  Home  Paper  '  ?  " 

I  was  lying  back  in  my  study-chair,  with  my  heels  luxu 
riously  propped  on  an  ottoman,  reading  for  the  two-hun 
dredth  time  Hawthorne's  "  Mosses  from  an  Old  Manse,"  or 
his  "  Twice-Told  Tales,"  I  forget  which,  —  I  only  know 
that  these  books  constitute  my  cloud-land,  where  I  love  to 
sail  away  in  dreamy  quietude,  forgetting  the  war,  the  price 
of  coal  and  flour,  the  rates  of  exchange,  and  the  rise  and 
fall  of  gold.  What  do  all  these  things  matter,  as  seen  from 
those  enchanted  gardens  in  Padua  where  the  weird  Kap- 
paccini  tends  his  enchanted  plants,  and  his  gorgeous  daughter 


86  HOUSE  AND  HOME  PAPERS 

fills  us  with  the  light  and  magic  of  her  presence,  and  sad 
dens  us  with  the  shadowy  allegoric  mystery  of  her  preter 
natural  destiny  ?  But  my  wife  represents  the  positive 
forces  of  time,  place,  and  number  in  our  family,  and,  hav 
ing  also  a  chronological  head,  she  knows  the  day  of  the 
month,  and  therefore  gently  reminded  me  that  by  inevitable 
dates  the  time  drew  near  for  preparing  my  —  which  is  it, 
now,  May  or  June  number  ? 

"  Well,  my  dear,  you  are  right,"  I  said,  as  by  an  exer 
tion  I  came  head-uppermost,  and  laid  down  the  fascinating 
volume.  "  Let  me  see,  what  was  I  to  write  about  ?  " 

"  Why,  you  remember  you  were  to  answer  that  letter 
from  the  lady  who  does  her  own  work." 

"  Enough  !  "  said  I,  seizing  the  pen  with  alacrity  ;  "  you 
have  hit  the  exact  phrase :  — 

"  '  The  lady  who  does  her  oivn  work.9 ' 

America  is  the  only  country  where  such  a  title  is  possi 
ble,  —  the  only  country  where  there  is  a  class  of  women 
who  may  be  described  as  ladies  who  do  their  own  work. 
By  a  lady  we  mean  a  woman  of  education,  cultivation,  and 
refinement,  of  liberal  tastes  and  ideas,  who,  without  any 
very  material  additions  or  changes,  would  be  recognized  as 
a  lady  in  any  circle  of  the  Old  World  or  the  New. 

What  I  have  said  is,  that  the  existence  of  such  a  class  is 
a  fact  peculiar  to  American  society,  a  clear,  plain  result  of 
the  new  principles  involved  in  the  doctrine  of  universal 
equality. 

WThen  the  colonists  first  came  to  this  country,  of  however 
mixed  ingredients  their  ranks  might  have  been  composed, 
and  however  imbued  with  the  spirit  of  feudal  and  aristo 
cratic  ideas,  the  discipline  of  the  wilderness  soon  brought 
them  to  a  democratic  level  ;  the  gentleman  felled  the  wood 
for  his  log-cabin  side  by  side  with  the  ploughman,  and  thews 
and  sinews  rose  in  the  market.  "  A  man  was  deemed  hon- 


THE   LADY    WHO   DOES   HER   OWN   WORK  87 

orable  in  proportion  as  he  lifted  his  hand  upon  the  high 
trees  of  the  forest.''  So  in  the  interior  domestic  circle. 
Mistress  and  maid,  living  in  a  log-cabin  together,  became 
companions,  and  sometimes  the  maid,  as  the  more  accom 
plished  and  stronger,  took  precedence  of  the  mistress.  It 
became  natural  and  unavoidable  that  children  should  begin 
to  work  as  early  as  they  were  capable  of  it.  The  result 
was  a  generation  of  intelligent  people  brought  up  to  labor 
from  necessity,  but  turning  on  the  problem  of  labor  the 
acuteness  of  a  disciplined  brain.  The  mistress,  outdone  in 
sinews  and  muscles  by  her  maid,  kept  her  superiority  by 
skill  and  contrivance.  If  she  could  not  lift  a  pail  of  water 
she  could  invent  methods  which  made  lifting  the  pail  un 
necessary  ;  if  she  could  not  take  a  hundred  steps  without 
weariness,  she  could  make  twenty  answer  the  purpose  of  a 
hundred. 

Slavery,  it  is  true,  was  to  some  extent  introduced  into 
New  England,  but  it  never  suited  the  genius  of  the  people, 
never  struck  deep  root,  or  spread  so  as  to  choke  the  good 
seed  of  self-helpfulness.  Many  were  opposed  to  it  from 
conscientious  principle,  —  many  from  far-sighted  thrift,  and 
from  a  love  of  thoroughness  and  well-doing  which  despised 
the  rude,  unskilled  work  of  barbarians.  People,  having 
once  felt  the  thorough  neatness  and  beauty  of  execution 
which  came  of  free,  educated,  and  thoughtful  labor,  could 
not  tolerate  the  clumsiness  of  slavery.  Thus  it  came  to 
pass  that  for  many  years  the  rural  population  of  New  Eng 
land,  as  a  general  rule,  did  their  own  work,  both  out  doors 
and  in.  If  there  were  a  black  man  or  black  woman  or 
bound  girl,  they  were  emphatically  only  the  helps,  following 
humbly  the  steps  of  master  and  mistress,  and  used  by  them 
as  instruments  of  lightening  certain  portions  of  their  toil. 
The  master  and  mistress  with  their  children  were  the  head 
workers. 

Great  merriment  has  been  excited  in  the  Old  Country 


88  HOUSE   AND   HOME   1'APEKS 

because  years  ago  the  first  English  travelers  found  that  the 
class  of  persons  by  them  denominated  servants  were  in 
America  denominated  help  or  helpers.  But  the  term  was 
the  very  best  exponent  of  the  state  of  society.  There  were 
few  servants  in  the  European  sense  of  the  word  ;  there  was 
a  society  of  educated  workers,  where  all  were  practically 
equal,  and  where,  if  there  was  a  deficiency  in  one  family 
and  an  excess  in  another,  a  helper,  not  a  servant,  was  hired. 
Mrs.  Brown,  who  has  six  sons  and  no  daughters,  enters 
into  agreement  with  Mrs.  Jones,  who  has  six  daughters  and 
no  sons.  She  borrows  a  daughter,  and  pays  her  good  wages 
to  help  in  her  domestic  toil,  and  sends  a  son  to  help  the 
labors  of  Mr.  Jones.  These  two  young  people  go  into  the 
families  in  which  they  are  to  be  employed  in  all  respects 
as  equals  and  companions,  and  so  the  work  of  the  commu 
nity  is  equalized.  Hence  arose,  and  for  many  years  contin 
ued,  a  state  of  society  more  nearly  solving  than  any  other 
ever  did  the  problem  of  combining  the  highest  culture  of 
the  mind  with  the  highest  culture  of  the  muscles  and  the 
physical  faculties. 

Then  were  to  be  seen  families  of  daughters,  handsome, 
strong  females,  rising  each  day  to  their  indoor  work  with 
cheerful  alertness,  —  one  to  sweep  the  room,  another  to 
make  the  fire,  while  a  third  prepared  the  breakfast  for  the 
father  and  brothers  who  were  going  out  to  manly  labor; 
and  they  chatted  meanwhile  of  books,  studies,  embroidery, 
discussed  the  last  new  poem,  or  some  historical  topic  started 
by  graver  reading,  or  perhaps  a  rural  ball  that  was  to  come 
off  the  next  week.  They  spun  with  the  book  tied  to  the 
distaff;  they  wove ;  they  did  all  manner  of  fine  needlework  ; 
they  made  lace,  painted  flowers,  and,  in  short,  in  the  bound 
less  consciousness  of  activity,  invention,  and  perfect  health, 
set  themselves  to  any  work  they  had  ever  read  or  thought 
of.  A  bride  in  those  days  was  married  with  sheets  and 
tablecloths  of  her  own  weaving,  with  counterpanes  and 


THE   LADY   WHO   DOES    HER    OWN   WORK  89 

toilet-covers  wrought  in  divers  embroidery  by  her  own  and 
her  sisters'  hands.  The  amount  of  fancy  work  done  in  our 
days  by  girls  who  have  nothing  else  to  do  will  not  equal 
what  was  done  by  these,  who  performed  besides,  among 
them,  the  whole  work  of  the  family. 

For  many  years  these  habits  of  life  characterized  the  ma 
jority  of  our  rural  towns.  They  still  exist  among  a  class 
respectable  in  numbers  and  position,  though  perhaps  not  as 
happy  in  perfect  self-satisfaction  and  a  conviction  of  the 
dignity  and  desirableness  of  its  lot  as  in  former  days.  Hu 
man  nature  is  above  all  things  —  lazy.  Every  one  confesses 
in  the  abstract  that  exertion  which  brings  out  all  the  powers 
of  body  and  mind  is  the  best  thing  for  us  all  5  but  prac 
tically  most  people  do  all  they  can  to  get  rid  of  it,  and  as 
a  general  rule  nobody  does  much  more  than  circumstances 
drive  him  to  do.  Even  I  would  not  write  this  article  were 
not  the  publication-day  hard  on  my  heels.  I  should  read 
Hawthorne  and  Emerson  and  Holmes,  and  dream  in  my 
armchair,  and  project  in  the  clouds  those  lovely  unwritten 
stories  that  curl  and  veer  and  change  like  mist-wreaths  in 
the  sun.  So  also,  however  dignified,  however  invigorating, 
however  really  desirable,  are  habits  of  life  involving  daily 
physical  toil,  there  is  a  constant  evil  demon  at  every  one's 
elbow,  seducing  him  to  evade  it,  or  to  bear  its  weight  with 
sullen,  discontented  murmurs. 

I  will  venture  to  say  that  there  are  at  least,  to  speak  very 
moderately,  a  hundred  houses  where  these  humble  lines  will 
be  read  and  discussed,  where  there  are  no  servants  except 
the  ladies  of  the  household.  I  will  venture  to  say,  also, 
that  these  households,  many  of  them,  are  not  inferior  in  the 
air  of  cultivation  and  refined  elegance  to  many  which  are 
conducted  by  the  ministration  of  domestics.  I  will  venture 
to  assert  furthermore  that  these  same  ladies  who  live  thus 
iind  quite  as  much  time  for  reading,  letter-writing,  drawing, 
embroidery,  and  fancy  work  as  the  women  of  families  other- 


90  HOUSE  AND  HOME  PAPERS 

wise  arranged.  I  am  quite  certain  that  they  would  be  found 
on  an  average  to  be  in  the  enjoyment  of  better  health,  and 
more  of  that  sense  of  capability  and  vitality  which  gives  one 
confidence  in  one's  ability  to  look  into  life  and  meet  it  with 
cheerful  courage,  than  three  quarters  of  the  women  who 
keep  servants  ;  and  that,  on  the  whole,  their  domestic  es 
tablishment  is  regulated  more  exactly  to  their  mind,  their 
food  prepared  and  served  more  to  their  taste.  And  yet, 
with  all  this,  I  will  not  venture  to  assert  that  they  are 
satisfied  with  this  way  of  living,  and  that  they  would  not 
change  it  forthwith  if  they  could.  They  have  a  secret  feel 
ing  all  the  while  that  they  are  being  abused,  that  they  are 
working  harder  than  they  ought  to,  and  that  women  who 
live  in  their  houses  like  boarders,  who  have  only  to  speak 
and  it  is  done,  are  the  truly  enviable  ones.  One  after 
another  of  their  associates,  as  opportunity  offers  and  means 
increase,  deserts  the  ranks,  and  commits  her  domestic  affairs 
to  the  hands  of  hired  servants.  Self  -  respect  takes  the 
alarm.  Is  it  altogether  genteel  to  live  as  we  do  ?  To  be- 
sure,  we  are  accustomed  to  it ;  we  have  it  all  systematized 
and  arranged ;  the  work  of  our  own  hands  suits  us  better 
than  any  we  can  hire  ;  in  fact,  when  we  do  hire,  we  are  dis 
contented  and  uncomfortable,  for  who  will  do  for  us  what 
we  will  do  for  ourselves  ?  But  when  we  have  company  ! 
there  's  the  rub,  to  get  out  all  our  best  things  and  put  them 
back,  —  to  cook  the  meals  and  wash  the  dishes  ingloriously, 
—  and  to  make  all  appear  as  if  we  did  n't  do  it,  and  had 
servants  like  other  people. 

There,  after  all,  is  the  rub.  A  want  of  hardy  self-respect, 
an  unwillingness  to  face  with  dignity  the  actual  facts  and 
necessities  of  our  situation  in  life,  —  this,  after  all,  is  the 
worst  and  most  dangerous  feature  of  the  case.  It  is  the  same 
sort  of  pride  which  makes  Smilax  think  he  must  hire  a 
waiter  in  white  gloves,  and  get  up  a  circuitous  dinner  party 
on  English  principles,  to  entertain  a  friend  from  England. 


THE   LADY   WHO   DOES   HER   OWN  WORK  91 

Because  the  friend  in  England  lives  in  such  and  such  a  style, 
he  must  make  believe  for  a  day  that  he  lives  so,  too,  when 
in  fact  it  is  a  whirlwind  in  his  domestic  establishment  equal 
to  a  removal  or  a  fire,  and  threatens  the  total  extinction  of 
Mrs.  Smilax.  Now  there  are  two  principles  of  hospitality 
that  people  are  very  apt  to  overlook.  One  is,  that  their 
guests  like  to  be  made  at  home,  and  treated  with  confidence  ; 
and  another  is,  that  people  are  always  interested  in  the  de 
tails  of  a  way  of  life  that  is  new  to  them.  The  Englishman 
comes  to  America  as  weary  of  his  old,  easy,  family-coach 
life  as  you  can  be  of  yours  :  he  wants  to  see  something  new 
under  the  sun,  —  something  American  ;  and  forthwith  we 
all  bestir  ourselves  to  give  him  something  as  near  as  we  can 
fancy  exactly  like  what  he  is  already  tired  of.  So  city 
people  come  to  the  country,  not  to  sit  in  the  best  parlor  and 
to  see  the  nearest  imitation  of  city  life,  but  to  lie  on  the 
haymow,  to  swing  in  the  barn,  to  form  intimacy  with  the 
pigs,  chickens,  and  ducks,  and  to  eat  baked  potatoes,  exactly 
on  the  critical  moment  when  they  are  done,  from  the  oven 
of  the  cooking-stove,  —  and  we  remark,  en  passant,  that 
nobody  has  ever  truly  eaten  a  baked  potato  unless  he  has 
seized  it  at  that  precise  and  fortunate  moment. 

I  fancy  you  now,  my  friends,  whom  I  have  in  my  eye. 
You  are  three  happy  women  together.  You  are  all  so 
well  that  you  know  not  how  it  feels  to  be  sick.  You  are 
used  to  early  rising,  and  would  not  lie  in  bed  if  you  could. 
Long  years  of  practice  have  made  you  familiar  with  the  short 
est,  neatest,  most  expeditious  method  of  doing  every  house 
hold  office,  so  that  really,  for  the  greater  part  of  the  time  in 
your  house,  there  seems  to  a  looker-on  to  be  nothing  to  do. 
You  rise  in  the  morning  and  dispatch  your  husband,  father, 
and  brothers  to  the  farm  or  wood-lot ;  you  go  sociably  about 
chatting  with  each  other,  while  you  skim  the  milk,  make 
the  butter,  turn  the  cheeses.  The  forenoon  is  long ;  it 's 
ten  to  one  that  all  the  so-called  morning  work  is  over,  and 


92  HOUSE  AND  HOME  PAPERS 

you  have  leisure  for  an  hour's  sewing  or  reading  before  it  is 
time  to  start  the  dinner  preparations.  By  two  o'clock  your 
housework  is  done,  and  you  have  the  long  afternoon  for 
books,  needlework,  or  drawing,  —  for  perhaps  there  is  among 
you  one  with  a  gift  at  her  pencil.  Perhaps  one  of  you  reads 
aloud  while  the  others  sew,  and  you  manage  in  that  way 
to  keep  up  with  a  great  deal  of  reading.  I  see  on  your 
bookshelves  Prescott,  Macaulay,  Irving,  besides  the  lighter 
fry  of  poems  and  novels,  and,  if  I  mistake  not,  the  friendly 
covers  of  the  "Atlantic."  When  you  have  company,  you 
invite  Mrs.  Smith  or  Brown  or  Jones  to  tea  :  you  have  no 
trouble  —  they  come  early,  with  their  knitting  or  sewing ; 
your  particular  crony  sits  with  you  by  your  polished  stove 
while  you  watch  the  baking  of  those  light  biscuits  and  tea 
rusks  for  which  you  are  so  famous,  and  Mrs.  Somebodyelse 
chats  with  your  sister,  who  is  spreading  the  table  with  your 
best  china  in  the  best  room.  When  tea  is  over,  there  is 
plenty  of  volunteering  to  help  you  wash  your  pretty  India 
teacups,  and  get  them  back  into  the  cupboard.  There  is  no 
special  fatigue  or  exertion  in  all  this,  though  you  have  taken 
down  the  best  things  and  put  them  back,  because  you  have 
done  all  without  anxiety  or  effort,  among  those  who  would 
do  precisely  the  same  if  you  were  their  visitors. 

But  now  comes  down  pretty  Mrs.  Simmons  and  her  pretty 
daughter  to  spend  a  week  with  you,  and  forthwith  you  are 
troubled.  Your  youngest,  Fanny,  visited  them  in  Xew 
York  last  fall,  and  tells  you  of  their  cook  and  chambermaid, 
and  the  servant  in  white  gloves  that  waits  on  the  table. 
You  say  in  your  soul,  "  What  shall  we  do  ?  they  never  can 
be  contented  to  live  as  we  do ;  how  shall  we  manage  ?  " 
And  now  you  long  for  servants. 

This  is  the  very  time  that  you  should  know  that  Mrs. 
Simmons  is  tired  to  death  of  her  fine  establishment,  and 
weighed  down  with  the  task  of  keeping  the  peace  among 
her  servants.  She  is  a  quiet  soul,  dearly  loving  her  ease 


THE   LADY   WHO   DOES   HER   OWN    WORK  93 

and  hating  strife  ;  and  yet  last  week  she  had  five  quarrels  to 
settle  between  her  invaluable  cook  and  the  other  members 
of  her  staff,  because  invaluable  cook,  on  the  strength  of 
knowing  how  to  get  up  state  dinners  and  to  manage  all 
sorts  of  mysteries  which  her  mistress  knows  nothing  about, 
asserts  the  usual  right  of  spoiled  favorites  to  insult  all  her 
neighbors  with  impunity,  and  rule  with  a  rod  of  iron  over 
the  whole  house.  Anything  that  is  not  in  the  least  like 
her  own  home  and  ways  of  living  will  be  a  blessed  relief 
and  change  to  Mrs.  Simmons.  Your  clean,  quiet  house, 
your  delicate  cookery,  your  cheerful  morning  tasks,  if  you 
will  let  her  follow  you  about,  and  sit  and  talk  with  you 
while  you  are  at  your  work,  will  all  seem  a  pleasant  con 
trast  to  her  own  life.  Of  course,  if  it  came  to  the  case  of 
offering  to  change  lots  in  life,  she  would  not  do  it ;  but  very 
likely  she  thinks  she  would,  and  sighs  over  and  pities  her 
self,  and  thinks  sentimentally  how  fortunate  you  are,  how 
snugly  and  securely  you  live,  and  wishes  she  were  as  un- 
trammeled  and  independent  as  you.  And  she  is  more  than 
half  right ;  for,  with  her  helpless  habits,  her  utter  ignorance 
of  the  simplest  facts  concerning  the  reciprocal  relations  of 
milk,  eggs,  butter,  saleratus,  soda,  and  yeast,  she  is  completely 
the  victim  and  slave  of  the  person  she  pretends  to  rule. 

Only  imagine  some  of  the  frequent  scenes  and  rehearsals 
in  her  family.  After  many  trials,  she  at  last  engages  a 
seamstress  who  promises  to  prove  a  perfect  treasure,  — 
neat,  dapper,  nimble,  skillful,  and  spirited.  The  very  soul 
of  Mrs.  Simmons  rejoices  in  heaven.  Illusive  bliss !  The 
newcomer  proves  to  be  no  favorite  with  Madam  Cook,  and 
the  domestic  fates  evolve  the  catastrophe,  as  follows.  First, 
low  murmur  of  distant  thunder  in  the  kitchen ;  then  a  day 
or  two  of  sulky  silence,  in  which  the  atmosphere  seems 
heavy  with  an  approaching  storm.  At  last  comes  the  climax. 
The  parlor  door  flies  open  during  breakfast.  Enter  seam 
stress  in  tears,  followed  by  Mrs.  Cook,  with  a  face  swollen 


94  HOUSE  AND  HOME  PAPERS 

and  red  with  wrath,  who  tersely  introduces  the  subject- 
matter  of  the  drama  in  a  voice  trembling  with  rage. 

"  Would  you  be  plased,  ma'am,  to  suit  yerself  with 
another  cook  ?  Me  week  will  be  up  next  Tuesday,  and  I 
want  to  be  going." 

"  Why,  Bridget,  what 's  the  matter  ?  " 

te  Matter  enough,  ma'am  !  I  niver  could  live  with  them 
Cork  girls  in  a  house,  nor  I  won't  ;  them  as  likes  the  Cork 
girls  is  welcome  for  all  me  j  but  it 's  not  for  the  likes  of  me 
to  live  with  them,  and  she  been  in  the  kitchen  a-upsettin' 
of  me  gravies  with  her  flatirons  and  things." 

Here  bursts  in  the  seamstress  with  a  whirlwind  of  denial, 
and  the  altercation  wages  fast  and  furious,  and  poor,  little, 
delicate  Mrs.  Simmons  stands  like  a  kitten  in  a  thunder 
storm  in  the  midst  of  a  regular  Irish  row. 

Cook,  of  course,  is  sure  of  her  victory.  She  knows  that 
a  great  dinner  is  to  come  off  Wednesday,  and  that  her 
mistress  has  not  the  smallest  idea  how  to  manage  it,  and 
that  therefore,  whatever  happens,  she  must  be  conciliated. 

Swelling  with  secret  indignation  at  the  tyrant,  poor  Mrs. 
Simmons  dismisses  her  seamstress  with  longing  looks.  She 
suited  her  mistress  exactly,  but  she  did  n't  suit  cook  ! 

Now,  if  Mrs.  Simmons  had  been  brought  up  in  early  life 
with  the  experience  that  you  have,  she  would  be  mistress  in 
her  own  house.  She  would  quietly  say  to  Madam  Cook, 
"  If  my  family  arrangements  do  not  suit  you,  you  can  leave. 
I  can  see  to  the  dinner  myself."  And  she  could  do  it. 
Her  well-trained  muscles  would  not  break  down  under  a 
little  extra  work  ;  her  skill,  adroitness,  and  perfect  familiarity 
with  everything  that  is  to  be  done  would  enable  her  at  once 
to  make  cooks  of  any  bright  girls  of  good  capacity  who 
might  still  be  in  her  establishment;  and,  above  all,  she 
would  feel  herself  mistress  in  her  own  house.  This  is  what 
would  come  of  an  experience  in  doing  her  own  work  as  you 
do.  She  who  can  at  once  put  her  own  trained  hand  to  the 


THE   LADY    WHO   DOES    HER   OWN   W011K  95 

machine  in  any  spot  where  a  hand  is  needed  never  comes  to 
be  the  slave  of  a  coarse,  vulgar  Irishwoman. 

So,  also,  in  forming  a  judgment  of  what  is  to  be  expected 
of  servants  in  a  given  time,  and  what  ought  to  be  expected 
of  a  given  amount  of  provisions,  poor  Mrs.  Simmons  is  ab 
solutely  at  sea.  If  even  for  one  six  months  in  her  life  she 
had  been  a  practical  cook,  and  had  really  had  the  charge  of 
the  larder,  she  would  not  now  be  haunted,  as  she  constantly 
is,  by  an  indefinite  apprehension  of  an  immense  wasteful 
ness,  perhaps  of  the  disappearance  of  provisions  through  se 
cret  channels  of  relationship  and  favoritism.  She  certainly 
could  not  be  made  to  believe  in  the  absolute  necessity  of  so 
many  pounds  of  sugar,  quarts  of  milk,  and  dozens  of  eggs, 
not  to  mention  spices  and  wine,  as  are  daily  required  for  the 
accomplishment  of  Madam  Cook's  purposes.  But  though 
now  she  does  suspect  and  apprehend,  she  cannot  speak  with 
certainty.  She  cannot  say,  "  /  have  made  these  things.  I 
know  exactly  what  they  require.  I  have  done  this  and 
that  myself,  and  know  it  can  be  done,  and  done  well,  in  a 
certain  time."  It  is  said  that  women  who  have  been  accus 
tomed  to  doing  their  own  work  become  hard  mistresses.  They 
are  certainly  more  sure  of  the  ground  they  stand  on,  —  they 
are  less  open  to  imposition,  —  they  can  speak  and  act  in 
their  own  houses  more  as  those  "having  authority,"  and 
therefore  are  less  afraid  to  exact  what  is  justly  their  due, 
and  less  willing  to  endure  impertinence  and  unfaithfulness. 
Their  general  error  lies  in  expecting  that  any  servant  ever 
will  do  as  well  for  them  as  they  will  do  for  themselves,  and 
that  an  untrained,  undisciplined  human  being  ever  can  do 
housework,  or  any  other  work,  with  the  neatness  and  per 
fection  that  a  person  of  trained  intelligence  can.  It  has 
been  remarked  in  our  armies  that  the  men  of  cultivation, 
though  bred  in  delicate  and  refined  spheres,  can  bear  up 
under  the  hardships  of  camp-life  better  and  longer  than 
rough  laborers.  The  reason  is,  that  an  educated  mind 


96  HOUSE   AND   HOME   TAPERS 

knows  how  to  use  and  save  its  body,  to  work  it  and  spare 
it,  as  an  uneducated  mind  cannot  ;  and  so  the  college-bred 
youth  brings  himself  safely  through  fatigues  which  kill  the 
unreflective  laborer.  Cultivated,  intelligent  women,  who 
are  brought  up  to  do  the  work  of  their  own  families,  are 
labor-saving  institutions.  They  make  the  head  save  the 
wear  of  the  muscles.  By  forethought,  contrivance,  system, 
and  arrangement,  they  lessen  the  amount  to  be  done,  and 
do  it  with  less  expense  of  time  and  strength  than  others. 
The  old  New  England  motto,  Get  your  work  done  up  in  the 
fore?ioon,  applied  to  an  amount  of  work  which  would  keep 
a  common  Irish  servant  toiling  from  daylight  to  sunset. 

A  lady  living  in  one  of  our  obscure  New  England  towns, 
where  there  were  no  servants  to  be  hired,  at  last  by  send 
ing  to  a  distant  city  succeeded  in  procuring  a  raw  Irish 
maid  of  all  work,  a  creature  of  immense  bone  and  muscle, 
but  of  heavy,  unawakened  brain.  In  one  fortnight  she 
established  such  a  reign  of  Chaos  and  old  Night  in  the 
kitchen  and  through  the  house  that  her  mistress,  a  delicate 
woman,  incumbered  with  the  care  of  young  children,  began 
seriously  to  think  that  she  made  more  work  each  day  than 
she  performed,  and  dismissed  her.  "What  was  now  to  be 
done  ?  Fortunately,  the  daughter  of  a  neighboring  farmer 
was  going  to  be  married  in. six  months,  and  wanted  a  little 
ready  money  for  her  trousseau.  The  lady  was  informed 
that  Miss  So  -  and  -  so  would  come  to  her,  not  as  a  servant, 
but  as  hired  "  help."  She  was  fain  to  accept  any  help  with 
gladness.  Forthwith  came  into  the  family  circle  a  tall,  well- 
dressed  young  person,  grave,  unobtrusive,  self-respecting,  yet 
not  in  the  least  presuming,  who  sat  at  the  family  table  and 
observed  all  its  decorums  with  the  modest  self-possession  of 
a  lady.  The  newcomer  took  a  survey  of  the  labors  of  a 
family  of  ten  members,  including  four  or  five  young  chil 
dren,  and,  looking,  seemed  at  once  to  throw  them  into  sys 
tem,  matured  her  plans,  arranged  her  hours  of  washing,  iron- 


THE   LADY   WHO   DOES    HER  OWN   WORK  97 

ing,  baking,  cleaning,  rose  early,  moved  deftly,  and  in  a 
single  day  the  slatternly  and  littered  kitchen  assumed  that 
neat,  orderly  appearance  that  so  often  strikes  one  in  New 
England  farmhouses.  The  work  seemed  to  be  all  gone. 
Everything  was  nicely  washed,  brightened,  put  in  place, 
and  stayed  in  place :  the  floors,  when  cleaned,  remained 
clean ;  the  work  was  always  done,  and  not  doing ;  and 
every  afternoon  the  young  lady  sat  neatly  dressed  in  her 
own  apartment,  either  writing  letters  to  her  betrothed,  or 
sewing  on  her  bridal  outfit.  Such  is  the  result  of  employ 
ing  those  who  have  been  brought  up  to  do  their  own  work. 
That  tall,  fine-looking  girl,  for  aught  we  know,  may  yet  be 
mistress  of  a  fine  house  on  Fifth  Avenue  ;  and,  if  she  is, 
she  will,  we  fear,  prove  rather  an  exacting  mistress  to  Irish 
Biddy  and  Bridget ;  but  she  will  never  be  threatened  by 
her  cook  and  chambermaid,  after  the  first  one  or  two  have 
tried  the  experiment. 

Having  written  thus  far  on  my  article  I  laid  it  aside 
till  evening,  when,  as  usual,  I  was  saluted  by  the  inquiry, 
"  Has  papa  been  writing  anything  to-day  ?  "  and  then  fol 
lowed  loud  petitions  to  hear  it ;  and  so  I  read  as  far, 
reader,  as  you  have. 

"  Well,  papa,"  said  Jenny,  "  what  are  you  meaning  to 
make  out  there  ?  Do  you  really  think  it  would  be  best  for 
us  all  to  try  to  go  back  to  that  old  style  of  living  you  de 
scribe  ?  After  all,  you  have  shown  only  the  dark  side  of 
an  establishment  with  servants,  and  the  bright  side  of  the 
other  way  of  living.  Mamma  does  not  have  such  trouble 
with  her  servants  ;  matters  have  always  gone  smoothly  in 
our  family ;  and,  if  we  are  not  such  wonderful  girls  as  those 
you  describe,  yet  we  may  make  pretty  good  housekeepers 
on  the  modern  system,  after  all." 

"  You  don't  know  all  the  troubles  your  mamma  has  had 
in  your  day,"  said  my  wife.  "  I  have  often,  in  the  course 


98  HOUSE  AND  HOME  PAPERS 

of  my  family  history,  seen  the  day  when  I  have  heartily 
wished  for  the  strength  and  ability  to  manage  my  household 
matters  as  my  grandmother  of  notable  memory  managed 
hers.  But  I  fear  that  those  remarkable  women  of  the  olden 
times  are  like  the  ancient  painted  glass,  —  the  art  of  making 
them  is  lost ;  my  mother  was  less  than  her  mother,  and  I 
am  less  than  my  mother." 

"And  Marianne  and  I  come  out  entirely  at  the  little  end 
of  the  horn,"  said  Jenny,  laughing;  "yet  I  wash  the  break 
fast  cups  and  dust  the  parlors,  and  have  always  fancied  my 
self  a  notable  housekeeper." 

"  It  is  just  as  I  told  you,"  I  said.  "  Human  nature  is 
always  the  same.  Nobody  ever  is  or  does  more  than  cir 
cumstances  force  him  to  be  and  do.  Those  remarkable 
women  of  old  were  made  by  circumstances.  There  were, 
comparatively  speaking,  no  servants  to  be  had,  and  so  chil 
dren  were  trained  to  habits  of  industry  and  mechanical 
adroitness  from  the  cradle,  and  every  household  process  was 
reduced  to  the  very  minimum  of  labor.  Every  step  required 
in  a  process  was  counted,  every  movement  calculated ;  and 
she  who  took  ten  steps,  when  one  would  do,  lost  her  repu 
tation  for  c  faculty.'  Certainly  such  an  early  drill  was  of 
use  in  developing  the  health  and  the  bodily  powers,  as  well 
as  in  giving  precision  to  the  practical  mental  faculties.  All 
household  economies  were  arranged  with  equal  niceness  in 
those  thoughtful  minds.  A  trained  housekeeper  knew  just 
how  many  sticks  of  hickory  of  a  certain  size  were  required 
to  heat  her  oven,  and  how  many  of  each  different  kind  of 
wood.  She  knew  by  a  sort  of  intuition  just  what  kind  of 
food  would  yield  the  most  palatable  nutriment  with  the  least 
outlay  of  accessories  in  cooking.  She  knew  to  a  minute  the 
time  when  each  article  must  go  into  and  be  withdrawn  from 
her  oven ;  and,  if  she  could  only  lie  in  her  chamber  and 
direct,  she  could  guide  an  intelligent  child  through  the  pro 
cesses  with  mathematical  certainty.  It  is  impossible,  how- 


THE    LADY    WHO   DOES    HER   OWN    WORK  99 

ever,  that  anything  but  early  training  and  long  experience 
can  produce  these  results,  and  it  is  earnestly  to  be  wished 
that  the  grandmothers  of  New  England  had  only  written 
down  their  experiences  for  our  children ;  they  would  have 
been  a  mine  of  maxims  and  traditions,  better  than  any  other 
traditions  of  the  elders  which  we  know  of."  ' 

"  One  thing  I  know,"  said  Marianne,  "  and  that  is,  I 
wish  I  had  been  brought  up  so,  and  knew  all  that  I  should, 
and  had  all  the  strength  and  adroitness  that  those  women 
had.  I  should  not  dread  to  begin  housekeeping,  as  I  now 
do.  I  should  feel  myself  independent.  I  should  feel  that 
I  knew  how  to  direct  my  servants,  and  what  it  was  reason 
able  and  proper  to  expect  of  them  ;  and  then,  as  you  say,  I 
should  n't  be  dependent  on  all  their  whims  and  caprices  of 
temper.  I  dread  those  household  storms,  of  all  things." 

Silently  pondering  these  anxieties  of  the  young  expectant 
housekeeper,  I  resumed  my  pen,  and  concluded  my  paper 
as  follows :  — 

Tn  this  country,  our  democratic  institutions  have  removed 
the  superincumbent  pressure  which  in  the  Old  World  con 
fines  the  servants  to  a  regular  orbit.  They  come  here  feel 
ing  that  this  is  somehow  a  land  of  liberty,  and  with  very 
dim  and  confused  notions  of  what  liberty  is.  They  are  for 
the  most  part  the  raw,  untrained  Irish  peasantry,  and  the 
wonder  is,  that,  with  all  the  unreasoning  heats  and  preju 
dices  of  the  Celtic  blood,  all  the  necessary  ignorance  and 
rawness,  there  should  be  the  measure  of  comfort  and  success 
there  is  in  our  domestic  arrangements.  But,  so  long  as 
things  are  so,  there  will  be  constant  changes  and  interrup 
tions  in  every  domestic  establishment,  and  constantly  recur 
ring  interregnums  when  the  mistress  must  put  her  own 
hand  to  the  work,  whether  the  hand  be  a  trained  or  an 
untrained  one.  As  matters  now  are,  the  young  housekeeper 
takes  life  at  the  hardest.  She  has  very  little  strength,  — 


100  HOUSE  AND  HOME  TAPERS 

no  experience  to  teach  her  how  to  save  her  strength.  She 
knows  nothing  experimentally  of  the  simplest  processes 
necessary  to  keep  her  family  comfortably  fed  and  clothed  ; 
and  she  has  a  way  of  looking  at  all  these  things  which 
makes  them  particularly  hard  and  distasteful  to  her.  She 
does  not  escape  being  obliged  to  do  housework  at  intervals, 
but  she  does  it  in  a  weak,  blundering,  confused  way,  that 
makes  it  twice  as  hard  and  disagreeable  as  it  need  be. 

Now  what  I  have  to  say  is,  that,  if  every  young  woman 
learned  to  do  housework  and  cultivated  her  practical  facul 
ties  in  early  life,  she  would,  in  the  first  place,  be  much 
more  likely  to  keep  her  servants,  and,  in  the  second  place, 
if  she  lost  them  temporarily,  would  avoid  all  that  wear  and 
tear  of  the  nervous  system  which  comes  from  constant  ill- 
success  in  those  departments  on  which  family  health  and 
temper  mainly  depend.  This  is  one  of  the  peculiarities  of 
our  American  life  which  require  a  peculiar  training.  Why 
not  face  it  sensibly  ? 

The  second  thing  I  have  to  say  is,  that  our  land  is  now 
full  of  motorpathic  institutions  to  which  women  are  sent  at 
great  expense  to  have  hired  operators  stretch  and  exercise 
their  inactive  muscles.  They  lie  for  hours  to  have  their 
feet  twigged,  their  arms  flexed,  and  all  the  different  muscles 
of  the  body  worked  for  them,  because  they  are  so  flaccid 
and  torpid  that  the  powers  of  life  do  not  go  on.  Would  it 
not  be  quite  as  cheerful  and  less  expensive  a  process  if 
young  girls  from  early  life  developed  the  muscles  in  sweep 
ing,  dusting,  ironing,  rubbing  furniture,  and  all  the  multi 
plied  domestic  processes  which  our  grandmothers  knew  of  ? 
A  woman  who  did  all  these,  and  diversified  the  intervals 
with  spinning  on  the  great  and  little  wheel,  never  came  to 
need  the  gymnastics  of  Dio  Lewis  or  of  the  Swedish  motor- 
pathist,  which  really  are  a  necessity  now.  Does  it  not  seem 
poor  economy  to  pay  servants  for  letting  our  muscles  grow 
feeble,  and  then  to  pay  operators  to  exercise  them  for  us  ? 


WHAT   CAN   BE   GOT   IN   AMERICA  101 

I  will  venture  to  say  that  our  grandmothers  in  a  week  went 
over  every  movement  that  any  gymnast  has  inyetnted.;.ancL 
went  over  them  to  some  productive  purpose,  too. 

Lastly,  my  paper  will  not  have  been  in  vain  if  those 
ladies  who  have  learned  and  practice  the  invaluable  accom 
plishment  of  doing  their  own  work  will  know  their  own 
happiness  and  dignity,  and  properly  value  their  great  ac 
quisition,  even  though  it  may  have  been  forced  upon  them 
by  circumstances. 

VII 

WHAT    CAN    BE    GOT    IN    AMERICA 

While  I  was  preparing  my  article  for  the  "  Atlantic," 
our  friend  Bob  Stephens  burst  in  upon  us,  in  some  consid 
erable  heat,  with  a  newspaper  in  his  hand. 

"  Well,  girls,  your  time  is  come  now  !  You  women  have 
been  preaching  heroism  and  sacrifice  to  us,  —  l  so  splendid 
to  go  forth  and  suffer  and  die  for  our  country,'  —  and  now 
comes  the  test  of  feminine  patriotism." 

"  Why,  what 's  the  matter  now  ?  "  said  Jenny,  running 
eagerly  to  look  over  his  shoulder  at  the  paper. 

"  No  more  foreign  goods,"  said  he,  waving  it  aloft,  — 
"  no  more  gold  shipped  to  Europe  for  silks,  laces,  jewels, 
kid  gloves,  and  what  not.  Here  it  is,  — great  movement, 
headed  by  senators'  and  generals'  wives,  Mrs.  General  But 
ler,  Mrs.  John  P.  Hale,  Mrs.  Henry  Wilson,  and  so  on,  a 
long  string  of  them,  to  buy  no  more  imported  articles  during 
the  war." 

"  But  I  don't  see  how  it  can  be  done,"  said  Jenny. 

"  Why,"  said  I,  "  do  you  suppose  that  '  nothing  to  wear ' 
is  made  in  America  ?  " 

"  But,  dear  Mr.  Crowfield,"  said  Miss  Featherstone,  a 
nice  girl,  who  was  just  then  one  of  our  family  circle,  "  there 


1Q2  HOUSE  AND  HOME  PAPERS 

is  not,  positively,  much  that  is  really  fit  to  use  or  wear 
\m«d£,  :n  Americjj,,  —  is  there  now  ?  Just  think  :  how  is 
Marianne  to  lurnish  her  house  here  without  French  papers 
and  English  carpets  ?  —  those  American  papers  are  so  very 
ordinary,  and,  as  to  American  carpets,  everybody  knows 
their  colors  don't  hold ;  and  then,  as  to  dress,  a  lady  must 
have  gloves,  you  know,  —  and  everybody  knows  no  such 
things  are  made  in  America  as  gloves." 

"  I  think/'  I  said,  "  that  I  have  heard  of  certain  fair 
ladies  wishing  that  they  were  men,  that  they  might  show 
with  what  alacrity  they  would  sacrifice  everything  on  the 
altar  of  their  country  :  life  and  limb  would  be  nothing ; 
they  would  glory  in  wounds  and  bruises,  they  would  enjoy 
losing  a  right  arm,  they  would  n't  mind  limping  about  on  a 
lame  leg  the  rest  of  their  lives,  if  they  were  John  or  Peter, 
if  only  they  might  serve  their  dear  country/'' 

"  Yes,"  said  Bob,  "  that 's  female  patriotism !  Girls  are 
always  ready  to  jump  off  from  precipices,  or  throw  them 
selves  into  abysses,  but  as  to  wearing  an  unfashionable  hat 
or  thread  gloves,  that  they  can't  do,  —  not  even  for  their 
dear  country.  No  matter  whether  there  's  any  money  left 
to  pay  for  the  war  or  not,  the  dear  souls  must  have  twenty 
yards  of  silk  in  a  dress,  —  it 's  the  fashion,  you  know." 

"Now,  isn't  he  too  bad?"  said  Marianne.  "As  if 
we  'd  ever  been  asked  to  make  these  sacrifices  and  refused  ! 
I  think  I  have  seen  women  ready  to  give  up  dress  and 
fashion  and  everything  else  for  a  good  cause." 

"  For  that  matter,"  said  I,  "  the  history  of  all  wars  has 
shown  women  ready  to  sacrifice  what  is  most  intimately 
feminine  in  times  of  peril  to  their  country.  The  women  of 
Carthage  not  only  gave  up  their  jewels  in  the  siege  of  their 
city,  but,  in  the  last  extremity,  cut  off  their  hair  for  bow 
strings.  The  women  of  Hungary  and  Poland,  in  their 
country's  need,  sold  their  jewels  and  plate  and  wore  orna 
ments  of  iron  and  lead.  In  the  time  of  our  own  Kevolu- 


WHAT   CAN   BE   GOT  IN  AMERICA  103 

tion,  our  women  dressed  in  plain  homespun  and  drank  herb- 
tea,  —  and  certainly  nothing  is  more  feminine  than  a  cup  of 
tea.  And  in  this  very  struggle,  the  women  of  the  Southern 
States  have  cut  up  their  carpets  for  blankets,  have  borne 
the  most  humiliating  retrenchments  and  privations  of  all 
kinds  without  a  murmur.  So  let  us  exonerate  the  female 
sex  of  want  of  patriotism,  at  any  rate." 

"  Certainly,"  said  my  wife  ;  "  and  if  our  Northern  wo 
men  have  not  retrenched  and  made  sacrifices,  it  has  been  be 
cause  it  has  not  been  impressed  on  them  that  there  is  any 
particular  call  for  it.  Everything  has  seemed  to  be  so  pros 
perous  and  plentiful  in  the  Northern  States,  money  has  been 
so  abundant  and  easy  to  come  by,  that  it  has  really  been 
difficult  to  realize  that  a  dreadful  and  destructive  war  was 
raging.  Only  occasionally,  after  a  great  battle,  when  the 
lists  of  the  killed  and  wounded  have  been  sent  through  the 
country,  have  we  felt  that  we  were  making  a  sacrifice.  The 
women  who  have  spent  such  sums  for  laces  and  jewels  and 
silks  have  not  had  it  set  clearly  before  them  why  they 
should  not  do  so.  The  money  has  been  placed  freely  in 
their  hands,  and  the  temptation  before  their  eyes." 

"  Yes,"  said  Jenny,  "  I  am  quite  sure  that  there  are  hun 
dreds  who  have  been  buying  foreign  goods  who  would  not 
do  it  if  they  could  see  any  connection  between  their  not 
doing  it  and  the  salvation  of  the  country  ;  but  when  I  go  to 
buy  a  pair  of  gloves,  I  naturally  want  the  best  pair  I  can 
find,  the  pair  that  will  last  the  longest  and  look  the  best, 
and  these  always  happen  to  be  French  gloves." 

"  Then,"  said  Miss  Featherstone,  "  I  never  could  clearly 
see  why  people  should  confine  their  patronage  and  encour 
agement  to  works  of  their  own  country.  1 7m  sure  the  poor 
manufacturers  of  England  have  shown  the  very  noblest 
spirit  with  relation  to  our  cause,  and  so  have  the  silk  weavers 
and  artisans  of  France,  —  at  least,  so  I  have  heard  ;  why 
should  we  not  give  them  a  fair  share  of  encouragement,  par- 


104  HOUSE  AND  HOME  PAPERS 

ticulaiiy  when  they  make  things  that  we  are  not  in  circum 
stances  to  make,  have  not  the  means  to  make  ?  " 

"  Those  are  certainly  sensible  questions/'  I  replied,  "  and 
ought  to  meet  a  fair  answer,  and  I  should  say  that,  were  our 
country  in  a  fair  ordinary  state  of  prosperity,  there  would  be 
no  reason  why  our  wealth  should  not  flow  out  for  the  en 
couragement  of  well-directed  industry  in  any  part  of  the 
world ;  from  this  point  of  view  we  might  look  on  the  whole 
world  as  our  country,  and  cheerfully  assist  in  developing  its 
wealth  and  resources.  But  our  country  is  now  in  the  situ 
ation  of  a  private  family  whose  means  are  absorbed  by  an 
expensive  sickness,  involving  the  life  of  its  head :  just  now 
it  is  all  we  can  do  to  keep  the  family  together  ;  all  our  means 
are  swallowed  up  by  our  own  domestic  wants ;  we  have  no 
thing  to  give  for  the  encouragement  of  other  families,  we 
must  exist  ourselves  ;  we  must  get  through  this  crisis  and 
hold  our  own,  and,  that  we  may  do  it,  all  the  family  expenses 
must  be  kept  within  ourselves  as  far  as  possible.  If  we 
drain  off  all  the  gold  of  the  country  to  send  to  Europe  to 
encourage  her  worthy  artisans,  we  produce  high  prices  and 
distress  among  equally  worthy  ones  at  home,  and  we  lessen 
the  amount  of  our  resources  for  maintaining  the  great  strug 
gle  for  national  existence.  The  same  amount  of  money 
which  we  pay  for  foreign  luxuries,  if  passed  into  the  hands 
of  our  own  manufacturers  and  producers,  becomes  available 
for  the  increasing  expenses  of  the  war." 

"  But,  papa,"  said  Jenny,  "  I  understood  that  a  great  part 
of  our  governmental  income  was  derived  from  the  duties  on 
foreign  goods,  and  so  I  inferred  that  the  more  foreign  goods 
were  imported  the  better  it  would  be." 

"  Well,  suppose,"  said  I,  "  that  for  every  hundred  thou 
sand  dollars  we  send  out  of  the  country  we  pay  the  govern 
ment  ten  thousand ;  that  is  about  what  our  gain  as  a  nation 
would  be  :  we  send  our  gold  abroad  in  a  great  stream,  and 
give  our  government  a  little  driblet." 


WHAT  CAN   BE   GOT  IN  AMERICA  105 

"  Well,  but/7  said  Miss  Featherstone,  "  what  can  be  got 
in  America  ?  Hardly  anything,  I  believe,  except  common 
calicoes/' 

"  Begging  your  pardon,  my  dear  lady,"  said  I,  "  there  is 
where  you  and  multitudes  of  others  are  greatly  mistaken. 
Your  partiality  for  foreign  things  has  kept  you  ignorant  of 
what  you  have  at  home.  Now  I  am  not  blaming  the  love 
of  foreign  things  :  it  is  not  peculiar  to  us  Americans  ;  all 
nations  have  it.  It  is  a  part  of  the  poetry  of  our  nature  to 
love  what  comes  from  afar,  and  reminds  us  of  lands  distant 
and  different  from  our  own.  The  English  belles  seek  after 
French  laces  ;  the  French  beauty  enumerates  English  laces 
among  her  rarities  ;  and  the  French  dandy  piques  himself 
upon  an  English  tailor.  We  Americans  are  great  travelers, 
and  few  people  travel,  I  fancy,  with  more  real  enjoyment 
than  we  ;  our  domestic  establishments,  as  compared  with 
those  of  the  Old  World,  are  less  cumbrous  and  stately,  and 
so  our  money  is  commonly  in  hand  as  pocket-money,  to  be 
spent  freely  and  gayly  in  our  tours  abroad. 

"  We  have  such  bright  and  pleasant  times  in  every  coun 
try  that  we  conceive  a  kindliness  for  its  belongings.  To  send 
to  Paris  for  our  dresses  and  our  shoes  and  our  gloves  may 
not  be  a  mere  bit  of  foppery,  but  a  reminder  of  the  bright, 
pleasant  hours  we  have  spent  in  that  city  of  boulevards  and 
fountains.  Hence  it  comes,  in  a  way  not  very  blamable, 
that  many  people  have  been  so  engrossed  with  what  can  be 
got  from  abroad  that  they  have  neglected  to  inquire  what 
can  be  found  at  home  :  they  have  supposed,  of  course,  that 
to  get  a  decent  watch  they  must  send  to  Geneva  or  to  Lon 
don  ;  that  to  get  thoroughly  good  carpets  they  must  have 
the  English  manufacture  ;  that  a  really  tasteful  wall-paper 
could  be  found  only  in  Paris ;  and  that  flannels  and  broad 
cloths  could  come  only  from  France,  Great  Britain,  or  Ger 
many." 

"  Well,  is  n't  it  so  ?  "  said  Miss  Featherstone.      "  I  cer- 


106  HOUSE   AND   HOME    PAPERS 

tainly  have  always  thought  so ;  I  never  heard  of  American 
watches,  1 7m  sure." 

"  Then/7  said  I,  "  I  ?m  sure  you  can't  have  read  an  arti 
cle  that  you  should  have  read  on  the  Waltham  watches, 
written  by  our  friend  George  W.  Curtis,  in  the  '  Atlantic ' 
for  January  of  last  year.  I  must  refer  you  to  that  to  learn 
that  we  make  in  America  watches  superior  to  those  of  Swit 
zerland  or  England,  bringing  into  the  service  machinery  and 
modes  of  workmanship  unequaled  for  delicacy  and  precision  ; 
as  I  said  before,  you  must  get  the  article  and  read  it,  and,  if 
some  sunny  day  you  could  make  a  trip  to  Waltham  and 
see  the  establishment,  it  would  greatly  assist  your  compre 
hension." 

"  Then,  as  to  men's  clothing,"  said  Bob,  "  I  know  to 
my  entire  satisfaction  that  many  of  the  most  popular  cloths 
for  men's  wear  are  actually  American  fabrics  baptized  with 
French  and  English  names  to  make  them  sell." 

"  Which  shows,"  said  I,  "  the  use  of  a  general  commu 
nity  movement  to  employ  American  goods.  It  will  change 
the  fashion.  The  demand  will  create  the  supply.  When 
the  leaders  of  fashion  are  inquiring  for  American  instead  of 
French  and  English  fabrics,  they  will  be  surprised  to  find 
what  nice  American  articles  there  are.  The  work  of  our 
own  hands  will  no  more  be  forced  to  skulk  into  the  market 
under  French  and  English  names,  and  we  shall  see,  what  is 
really  true,  that  an  American  gentleman  need  not  look  be 
yond  his  own  country  for  a  wardrobe  befitting  him.  I  am 
positive  that  we  need  not  seek  broadcloth  or  other  woolen 
goods  from  foreign  lands,  —  that  letter  hats  are  made  in 
America  than  in  Europe,  and  better  boots  and  shoes  j  and  I 
should  be  glad  to  send  an  American  gentleman  to  the  World's 
Fair  dressed  from  top  to  toe  in  American  manufactures, 
with  an  American  watch  in  his  pocket,  and  see  if  he  would 
suffer  in  comparison  with  the  gentlemen  of  any  other  coun 
try." 


WHAT   CAN   BE   GOT   IN    AMERICA  107 

"  Then,  as  to  house-furnishing,"  began  my  wife,  "  Ameri 
can  carpets  are  getting  to  be  every  way  equal  to  the  Eng 
lish." 

"  Yes,"  said  I,  "  and,  what  is  more,  the  Brussels  carpets 
of  England  are  woven  on  looms  invented  by  an  American, 
and  bought  of  him.  Our  countryman,  Bigelow,  went  to 
England  to  study  carpet-weaving  in  the  English  looms, 
supposing  that  all  arts  were  generously  open  for  the  instruc 
tion  of  learners.  He  was  denied  the  opportunity  of  study 
ing  the  machinery  and  watching  the  processes  by  a  short 
sighted  jealousy.  He  immediately  sat  down  with  a  yard 
of  carpeting,  and,  patiently  unraveling  it  thread  by  thread, 
combined  and  calculated  till  he  invented  the  machinery  on 
which  the  best  carpets  of  the  Old  and  the  New  World  are 
woven.  No  pains  which  such  ingenuity  and  energy  can 
render  effective  are  spared  to  make  our  fabrics  equal  those 
of  the  British  market,  and  we  need  only  to  be  disabused  of 
the  old  prejudice,  and  to  keep  up  with  the  movement  of  our 
own  country,  and  find  out  our  own  resources.  The  fact  is, 
every  year  improves  our  fabrics.  Our  mechanics,  our  manu 
facturers,  are  working  with  an  energy,  a  zeal,  and  a  skill  that 
carry  things  forward  faster  than  anybody  dreams  of  ;  and 
nobody  can  predicate  the  character  of  American  articles  in 
any  department  now  by  their  character  even  five  years  ago." 

"  Well,  as  to  wall-papers,"  said  Miss  Featherstone,  "  there 
you  must  confess  the  French  are  and  must  be  unequaled." 

"  I  do  not  confess  any  such  thing,"  said  I  hardily.  "  I 
grant  you  that,  in  that  department  of  paper-hangings  which 
exhibits  floral  decoration,  the  French  designs  and  execution 
are,  and  must  be  for  some  time  to  come,  far  ahead  of  all 
the  world :  their  drawing  of  flowers,  vines,  and  foliage  has 
the  accuracy  of  botanical  studies  and  the  grace  of  finished 
works  of  art,  and  we  cannot  as  yet  pretend  in  America  to  do 
anything  equal  to  it.  But  for  satin  finish,  and  for  a  variety 
of  exquisite  tints  of  plain  colors,  American  papers  equal  any 


108  HOUSE    AND    HOME    PAPERS 

in  the  world :  our  gilt  papers  even  surpass  in  the  heaviness 
and  polish  of  the  gilding  those  of  foreign  countries ;  and  we 
have  also  gorgeous  velvets.  All  I  have  to  say  is,  let  people 
who  are  furnishing  houses  inquire  for  articles  of  American 
manufacture,  and  they  will  be  surprised  at  what  they  will 
see.  We  need  go  no  farther  than  our  Cambridge  glass 
works  to  see  that  the  most  dainty  devices  of  cut-glass, 
crystal,  ground  and  engraved  glass  of  every  color  and 
pattern,  may  be  had  of  American  workmanship,  every  way 
equal  to  the  best  European  make,  and  for  half  the  price. 
And  American  painting  on  china  is  so  well  executed,  both  in 
Boston  and  New  York,  that  deficiencies  in  the  finest  French 
or  English  sets  can  be  made  up  in  a  style  not  distinguishable 
from  the  original,  as  one  may  easily  see  by  calling  on  our 
worthy  next  neighbor,  Briggs,  who  holds  the  opposite  cor 
ner  to  our  '  Atlantic  Monthly.'  No  porcelain,  it  is  true, 
is  yet  made  in  America,  these  decorative  arts  being  exer 
cised  on  articles  imported  from  Europe.  Our  tables  must, 
therefore,  perforce,  be  largely  indebted  to  foreign  lands  for 
years  to  come.  Exclusive  of  this  item,  however,  I  believe 
it  would  require  very  little  self-denial  to  paper,  carpet,  and 
furnish  a  house  entirely  from  the  manufactures  of  America. 
I  cannot  help  saying  one  word  here  in  favor  of  the  cabinet 
makers  of  Boston.  There  is  so  much  severity  of  taste,  such 
a  style  and  manner  -about  the  best-made  Boston  furniture, 
as  raises  it  really  quite  into  the  region  of  the  fine  arts. 
Our  artisans  have  studied  foreign  models  with  judicious 
eyes,  and  so  transferred  to  our  country  the  spirit  of  what  is 
best  worth  imitating  that  one  has  no  need  to  import  furni 
ture  from  Europe." 

"  Well,"  said  Miss  Featherstone,  "  there  is  one  point 
you  cannot  make  out,  —  gloves  ;  certainly  the  French  have 
the  monopoly  of  that  article." 

"  I  am  not  going  to  ruin  my  cause  by  asserting  too 
much,"  said  I.  "  I  have  n't  been  with  nicely  dressed  wo- 


WHAT   CAN   BE   GOT   IN   AMEEICA  109 

men  so  many  years  not  to  speak  with  proper  respect  of 
Alexander's  gloves ;  and  I  confess  honestly  that  to  forego 
them  must  be  a  fair,  square  sacrifice  to  patriotism.  But 
then,  on  the  other  hand,  it  is  nevertheless  true  that  gloves 
have  long  been  made  in  America  and  surreptitiously  brought 
into  market  as  French.  I  have  lately  heard  that  very  nice 
kid  gloves  are  made  at  Watertown  and  in  Philadelphia.  I 
have  only  heard  of  them  and  not  seen.  A  loud  demand 
might  bring  forth  an  unexpected  supply  from  these  and 
other  sources.  If  the  women  of  America  were  bent  on 
having  gloves  made  in  their  own  country,  how  long  would 
it  be  before  apparatus  and  factories  would  spring  into  be 
ing  ?  Look  at  the  hoop-skirt  factories ;  women  wanted 
hoop-skirts,  —  would  have  them  or  die,  —  and  forthwith 
factories  arose,  and  hoop-skirts  became  as  the  dust  of  the 
earth  for  abundance." 

"  Yes,"  said  Miss  Featherstone,  "  and,  to  say  the  truth, 
the  American  hoop-skirts  are  the  only  ones  fit  to  wear. 
When  we  were  living  on  the  Champs  Elysees,  I  remem 
ber  we  searched  high  and  low  for  something  like  them,  and 
finally  had  to  send  home  to  America  for  some.''' 

"  Well,"  said  I,  "  that  shows  what  I  said.  Let  there 
be  only  a  hearty  call  for  an  article  and  it  will  come.  These 
spirits  of  the  vasty  deep  are  not  so  very  far  off,  after  all,  as 
we  may  imagine,  and  women's  unions  and  leagues  will  lead 
to  inquiries  and  demands  which  will  as  infallibly  bring  sup 
plies  as  a  vacuum  will  create  a  draught  of  air." 

"  But,  at  least,  there  are  no  ribbons  made  in  America," 
said  Miss  Featherstone. 

"  Pardon,  my  lady,  there  is  a  ribbon  factory  now  in  oper 
ation  in  Boston,  and  ribbons  of  every  color  are  made  in 
New  York ;  there  is  also  in  the  vicinity  of  Boston  a  factory 
which  makes  Roman  scarfs.  This  shows  that  the  faculty 
of  weaving  ribbons  is  not  wanting  to  us  Americans,  and 
a  zealous  patronage  would  increase  the  supply. 


110  HOUSE  AND  HOME  PAPERS 

"  Then,  as  for  a  thousand  and  one  little  feminine  needs, 
I  believe  our  manufacturers  can  supply  them.  The  Ports 
mouth  Steam  Company  makes  white  spool-cotton  equal  to 
any  in  England,  and  colored  spool-cotton,  of  every  shade 
and  variety,  such  as  is  not  made  either  in  England  or 
France.  Pins  are  well  made  in  America  ;  so  are  hooks  and 
eyes,  and  a  variety  of  buttons.  Straw  bonnets  of  Ameri 
can  manufacture  are  also  extensively  in  market,  and  quite  as 
pretty  ones  as  the  double-priced  ones  which  are  imported. 

"  As  to  silks  and  satins,  I  am  not  going  to  pretend  that 
they  are  to  be  found  here.  It  is  true,  there  are  silk  manu 
factories,  like  that  of  the  Cheneys  in  Connecticut,  where 
very  pretty  foulard  dress-silks  are  made,  together  with  sew 
ing-silk  enough  to  supply  a  large  demand.  Enough  has 
been  done  to  show  that  silks  might  be  made  in  America  ; 
but  at  present,  as  compared  with  Europe,  we  claim  neither 
silks  nor  thread  laces  among  our  manufactures. 

"  But  what  then  ?  These  are  not  necessaries  of  life. 
Ladies  can  be  very  tastefully  dressed  in  other  fabrics  be 
sides  silks.  There  are  many  pretty  American  dress-goods 
which  the  leaders  of  fashion  might  make  fashionable,  and 
certainly  no  leader  of  fashion  could  wish  to  dress  for  a  no 
bler  object  than  to  aid  her  country  in  deadly  peril. 

"  It  is  not  a  life-pledge,  not  a  total  abstinence,  that  is 
asked,  —  only  a  temporary  expedient  to  meet  a  stringent 
crisis.  We  only  ask  a  preference  for  American  goods  where 
they  can  be  found.  Surely,  women  whose  exertions  in 
Sanitary  Fairs  have  created  an  era  in  the  history  of  the 
world  will  not  shrink  from  so  small  a  sacrifice  for  so  ob 
vious  a  good. 

"  Here  is  something  in  which  every  individual  woman 
can  help.  Every  woman  who  goes  into  a  shop  and  asks 
for  American  goods  renders  an  appreciable  aid  to  our  cause. 
She  expresses  her  opinion  and  her  patriotism,  and  her  voice 
forms  a  part  of  that  demand  which  shall  arouse  and  develop 


WHAT    CAN   BE    GOT   IN   AMERICA  111 

the  resources  of  her  country.  We  shall  learn  to  know  our 
own  country.  We  shall  learn  to  respect  our  own  powers, 
and  every  branch  of  useful  labor  will  spring  and  flour 
ish  under  our  well-directed  efforts.  We  shall  come  out  of 
our  great  contest,  not  bedraggled,  ragged,  and  poverty- 
stricken,  but  developed,  instructed,  and  rich.  Then  will 
we  gladly  join  with  other  nations  in  the  free  interchange  of 
manufactures,  and  gratify  our  eye  and  taste  with  what  is 
foreign,  while  we  can  in  turn  send  abroad  our  own  produc 
tions  in  equal  ratio." 

"  Upon  my  word,"  said  Miss  Featherstone,  "  I  should 
think  it  was  the  Fourth  of  July  ;  but  I  yield  the  point. 
I  am  convinced ;  and  henceforth  you  will  see  me  among 
the  most  stringent  of  the  leaguers." 

"  Eight !  "  said  I. 

And,  fair  lady  reader,  let  me  hope  you  will  say  the  same. 
You  can  do  something  for  your  country,  —  it  lies  right  in 
your  hand.  Go  to  the  shops,  determined  on  supplying  your 
family  and  yourself  with  American  goods.  Insist  on  hav 
ing  them  ;  raise  the  question  of  origin  over  every  article 
shown  to  you.  In  the  Revolutionary  times,  some  of  the 
leading  matrons  of  New  England  gave  parties  where  the 
ladies  were  dressed  in  homespun  and  drank  sage  tea.  Fash 
ion  makes  all  things  beautiful,  and  you,  my  charming  and 
accomplished  friend,  can  create  beauty  by  creating  fashion. 
What  makes  the  beauty  of  half  the  Cashmere  shawls  ? 
Not  anything  in  the  shawls  themselves,  for  they  often  look 
coarse  and  dingy  and  barbarous.  It  is  the  association  with 
style  and  fashion.  Fair  lady,  give  style  and  fashion  to  the 
products  of  your  own  country,  —  resolve  that  the  money 
in  your  hand  shall  go  to  your  brave  brothers,  to  your  co- 
Americans,  now  straining  every  nerve  to  uphold  the  nation 
and  cause  it  to  stand  high  in  the  earth.  What  are  you 
without  your  country  ?  As  Americans  you  can  hope  for 
no  rank  but  the  rank  of  your  native  land,  no  badge  of  no- 


112  HOUSE   AND   HOME   PAPERS 

bility  but  her  beautiful  stars.  It  rests  with  this  conflict  to 
decide  whether  those  stars  shall  be  badges  of  nobility  to  you 
and  your  childen  in  all  lands.  Women  of  America,  your 
country  expects  every  woman  to  do  her  duty  ! 

VIII 

ECONOMY 

"  The  fact  is,"  said  Jenny,  as  she  twirled  a  little  hat  on 
her  hand,  which  she  had  been  making  over,  with  nobody 
knows  what  of  bows  and  pompons,  and  other  matters  for 
which  the  women  have  curious  names,  —  "  the  fact  is, 
American  women  and  girls  must  learn  to  economize ;  it 
is  n't  merely  restricting  one's  self  to  American  goods,  it  is 
general  economy,  that  is  required.  Now  here's  this  hat, 
—  costs  me  only  three  dollars,  all  told ;  and  Sophie  Page 
bought  an  English  one  this  morning  at  Madam  Meyer's  for 
which  she  gave  fifteen.  And  I  really  don't  think  hers  has 
more  of  an  air  than  mine.  I  made  this  over,  you  see,  with 
things  I  had  in  the  house,  bought  nothing  but  the  ribbon, 
and  paid  for  altering  and  pressing,  and  there  you  see  what 
a  stylish  hat  I  have  !  " 

"  Lovely  !  admirable  !  "  said  Miss  Featherstone.  "  Upon 
my  word,  Jenny,  you  ought  to  marry  a  poor  parson ;  you 
would  be  quite  thrown  away  upon  a  rich  man." 

"  Let  me  see,"  said  I.  "  I  want  to  admire  intelligently. 
That  is  n't  the  hat  you  were  wearing  yesterday  ?  " 

"  Oh  no,  papa  !  This  is  just  done.  The  one  I  wore  yes 
terday  was  my  waterfall-hat,  with  the  green  feather ;  this, 
you  see,  is  an  oriole." 

"  A  what  ?  " 

"  An  oriole.  Papa,  how  can  you  expect  to  learn  about 
these  things  ?  " 

"  And  that  plain  little  black  one,  with  the  stiff  crop  of 
scarlet  feathers  sticking  straight  up  ?  " 


ECONOMY  113 

"  That 's  my  jockey,  papa,  with  a  plume  en  militaire" 

"  And  did  the  waterfall  and  the  jockey  cost  anything  ?  " 

"  They  were  very,  very  cheap,  papa,  all  things  consid 
ered.  Miss  Featherstone  will  remember  that  the  waterfall 
was  a  great  bargain,  and  I  had  the  feather  from  last  year ; 
and  as  to  the  jockey,  that  was  made  out  of  my  last  year's 
white  one,  dyed  over.  You  know,  papa,  I  always  take 
care  of  my  things,  and  they  last  from  year  to  year." 

"  I  do  assure  you,  Mr.  Crowfield,"  said  Miss  Feather- 
stone,  "  I  never  saw  such  little  economists  as  your  daugh 
ters  ;  it  is  perfectly  wonderful  what  they  contrive  to  dress 
on.  How  they  manage  to  do  it  I  'm  sure  I  can't  see.  I 
never  could,  I  'm  convinced." 

"  Yes,"  said  Jenny,  "  I  've  bought  but  just  one  new  hat. 
I  only  wish  you  could  sit  in  church  where  we  do,  and  see 
those  Miss  Fielders.  Marianne  and  I  have  counted  six 
new  hats  apiece  of  those  girls',  —  new,  you.  know,  just  out 
of  the  milliner's  shop  ;  and  last  Sunday  they  came  out  in 
such  lovely  puffed  tulle  bonnets !  Were  n't  they  lovely, 
Marianne  ?  And  next  Sunday,  I  don't  doubt,  there  '11  be 
something  else." 

"Yes,"  said  Miss  Featherstone,  — " their  father,  they 
say,  has  made  a  million  dollars  lately  on  government  con 
tracts." 

"  For  my  part,"  said  Jenny,  "  I  think  such  extravagance, 
at  such  a  time  as  this,  is  shameful." 

"  Do  you  know,"  said  I,  "  that  I  'm  quite  sure  the 
Misses  Fielder  think  they  are  practicing  rigorous  economy  ?  " 

"  Papa  !  Now  there  you  are  with  your  paradoxes  !  How 
can  you  say  so  ?  " 

"  I  should  n't  be  afraid  to  bet  a  pair  of  gloves,  now," 
said  I,  "that  Miss  Fielder  thinks  herself  half  ready  for 
translation,  because  she  has  bought  only  six  new  hats  and 
a  tulle  bonnet  so  far  in  the  season.  If  it  were  not  for  her 
dear  bleeding  country,  she  would  have  had  thirty-six,  like 


114  HOUSE  AND  HOME  PAPERS 

the  Misses  Sibthorpe.  If  we  were  admitted  to  the  secret 
councils  of  the  Fielders,  doubtless  we  should  perceive  what 
temptations  they  daily  resist ;  how  perfectly  rubbishy  and 
dreadful  they  suffer  themselves  to  be,  because  they  feel  it 
important  now,  in  this  crisis,  to  practice  economy  ;  how 
they  abuse  the  Sibthorpes,  who  have  a  new  hat  every  time 
they  drive  out,  and  never  think  of  wearing  one  more  than 
two  or  three  times ;  how  virtuous  and  self-denying  they 
feel  when  they  think  of  the  puffed  tulle,  for  which  they 
only  gave  eighteen  dollars,  when  Madame  Caradori  showed 
them  those  lovely  ones,  like  the  Misses  Sibthorpe's,  for 
forty-five ;  and  how  they  go  home  descanting  on  virgin 
simplicity,  and  resolving  that  they  will  not  allow  them 
selves  to  be  swept  into  the  vortex  of  extravagance,  what 
ever  other  people  may  do." 

"  Do  you  know,"  said  Miss  Featherstone,  "  I  believe 
your  papa  is  right  ?  I  was  calling  on  the  oldest  Miss 
Fielder  the  other  day,  and  she  told  me  that  she  positively 
felt  ashamed  to  go  looking  as  she  did,  but  that  she  really  did 
feel  the  necessity  of  economy.  '  Perhaps  we  might  afford  to 
spend  more  than  some  others,'  she  said  ;  '  but  it 's  so  much 
better  to  give  the  money  to  the  Sanitary  Commission  ! '  : 

"  Furthermore,"  said  I,  "  I  am  going  to  put  forth  another 
paradox,  and  say  that  very  likely  there  are  some  people 
looking  on  my  girls,  and  commenting  on  them  for  extrava 
gance  in  having  three  hats,  even  though  made  over,  and 
contrived  from  last  year's  stock." 

"  They  can't  know  anything  about  it,  then,"  said  Jenny 
decisively  ;  "  for,  certainly,  nobody  can  be  decent  and  in 
vest  less  in  millinery  than  Marianne  and  I  do." 

"  When  I  was  a  young  lady,"  said  my  wife,  "  a  well- 
dressed  girl  got  her  a  new  bonnet  in  the  spring,  and  another 
in  the  fall  j  that  was  the  extent  of  her  purchases  in  this 
line.  A  second-best  bonnet,  left  of  last  year,  did  duty  to 
relieve  and  preserve  the  best  one.  My  father  was  accounted 


ECONOMY  115 

well-to-do,  but  I  had  no  more,  and  wanted  no  more.  I  also 
bought  myself,  every  spring,  two  pair  of  gloves,  a  dark  and 
a  light  pair,  and  wore  them  through  the  summer,  and  another 
two  through  the  winter ;  one  or  two  pair  of  white  kids, 
carefully  cleaned,  carried  me  through  all  my  parties.  Hats 
had  not  been  heard  of,  and  the  great  necessity  which  re 
quires  two  or  three  new  ones  every  spring  and  fall  had 
not  arisen.  Yet  I  was  reckoned  a  well-appearing  girl,  who 
dressed  liberally.  Now,  a  young  lady  who  has  a  waterfall- 
hat,  an  oriole-hat,  and  a  jockey  must  still  be  troubled  with 
anxious  cares  for  her  spring  and  fall  and  summer  and  winter 
bonnets,  —  all  the  variety  will  not  take  the  place  of  them. 
Gloves  are  bought  by  the  dozen ;  and  as  to  dresses,  there 
seems  to  be  no  limit  to  the  quantity  of  material  and  trim 
ming  that  may  be  expended  upon  them.  When  I  was  a 
young  lady,  seventy-five  dollars  a  year  was  considered  by 
careful  parents  a  liberal  allowance  for  a  daughter's  ward 
robe.  I  had  a  hundred,  and  was  reckoned  rich ;  and  I 
sometimes  used  a  part  to  make  up  the  deficiencies  in  the 
allowance  of  Sarah  Evans,  my  particular  friend,  whose 
father  gave  her  only  fifty.  We  all  thought  that  a  very 
scant  allowance  ;  yet  she  generally  made  a  very  pretty  and 
genteel  appearance,  with  the  help  of  occasional  presents 
from  friends." 

"  How  could  a  girl  dress  for  fifty  dollars  ?  "  said  Mari 
anne. 

"  She  could  get  a  white  muslin  and  a  white  cambric, 
which,  with  different  sortings  of  ribbons,  served  her  for  all 
dress  occasions.  A  silk,  in  those  days,  took  only  ten  yards 
in  the  making,  and  one  dark  silk  was  considered  a  reason 
able  allowance  to  a  lady's  wardrobe.  Once  made,  it  stood 
for  something,  —  always  worn  carefully,  it  lasted  for  years. 
One  or  two  calico  morning-dresses,  and  a  merino  for  winter 
wear,  completed  the  list.  Then,  as  to  collars,  capes,  cuffs, 
etc.,  we  all  did  our  own  embroidering,  and  very  pretty 


116  HOUSE  AND  HOME  PAPERS 

things  we  wore,  too.  Girls  looked  as  prettily  then  as  they 
do  now,  when  four  or  five  hundred  dollars  a  year  is  insuffi 
cient  to  clothe  them." 

"  But,  mamma,  you  know  our  allowance  is  n't  anything 
like  that,  —  it  is  quite  a  slender  one,  though  not  so  small 
as  yours  was,"  said  Marianne.  "  Don't  you  think  the  cus 
toms  of  society  make  a  difference  ?  Do  you  think,  as  things 
are,  we  could  go  back  and  dress  for  the  sum  you  did  ?  " 

"  You  cannot,"  said  my  wife,  "  without  a  greater  sacri 
fice  of  feeling  than  I  wish  to  impose  on  you.  Still,  though 
I  don't  see  how  to  help  it,  I  cannot  but  think  that  the  re 
quirements  of  fashion  are  becoming  needlessly  extravagant, 
particularly  in  regard  to  the  dress  of  women.  It  seems  to 
me,  it  is  making  the  support  of  families  so  burdensome  that 
young  men  are  discouraged  from  marriage.  A  young  man, 
in  a  moderately  good  business,  might  cheerfully  undertake 
the  world  with  a  wrife  who  could  make  herself  pretty  and 
attractive  for  seventy-five  dollars  a  year,  when  he  might  sigh 
in  vain  for  one  who  positively  could  not  get  through,  and 
be  decent,  on  four  hundred.  Women,  too,  are  getting  to 
be  so  attached  to  the  trappings  and  accessories  of  life  that 
they  cannot  think  of  marriage  without  an  amount  of  fortune 
which  few  young  men  possess." 

"  You  are  talking  in  very  low  numbers  about  the  dress 
of  women,"  said  Miss  Featherstone.  "  I  do  assure  you  that 
it  is  the  easiest  thing  in  the  world  for  a  girl  to  make  away 
with  a  thousand  dollars  a  year,  and  not  have  so  much  to 
show  for  it,  either,  as  Marianne  and  Jenny." 

"  To  be  sure,"  said  I.  "  Only  establish  certain  formu 
las  of  expectation,  and  it  is  the  easiest  thing  in  the  world. 
For  instance,  in  your  mother's  day  girls  talked  of  a  pair  of 
gloves,  —  now  they  talk  of  a  pack  ;  then  it  was  a  bonnet 
summer  and  winter,  —  now  it  is  a  bonnet  spring,  summer, 
autumn,  and  winter,  and  hats  like  monthly  roses,  —  a  new 
blossom  every  few  weeks." 


ECONOMY  117 

"  And  then,"  said  my  wife,  "  every  device  of  the  toilet 
is  immediately  taken  up  and  varied  and  improved  on,  so  as 
to  impose  an  almost  monthly  necessity  for  novelty.  The 
jackets  of  May  are  outshone  by  the  jackets  of  June ;  the 
buttons  of  June  are  antiquated  in  July  ;  the  trimmings  of 
July  are  passees  by  September  ;  side-combs,  back-combs, 
puffs,  rats,  and  all  sorts  of  such  matters,  are  in  a  distracted 
race  of  improvement  ;  every  article  of  feminine  toilet  is  on 
the  move  towards  perfection.  It  seems  to  me  that  an  infin 
ity  of  money  must  be  spent  in  these  trifles  by  those  who 
make  the  least  pretension  to  keep  in  the  fashion." 

"  Well,  papa,"  said  Jenny,  "  after  all,  it 's  just  the  way 
things  always  have  been  since  the  world  began.  You  know 
the  Bible  says,  '  Can  a  maid  forget  her  ornaments  ? '  It 's 
clear  she  can't.  You  see,  it 's  a  law  of  nature ;  and  you 
remember  all  that  long  chapter  in  the  Bible  that  we  had  read 
in  church  last  Sunday  about  the  curls  and  veils  and  tinkling 
ornaments  and  crimping-pins,  and  all  that,  of  those  wicked 
daughters  of  Zion  in  old  times.  Women  always  have  been 
too  much  given  to  dress,  and  they  always  will  be." 

"  The  thing  is,"  said  Marianne,  "  how  can  any  woman, 
I,  for  example,  know  what  is  too  much  or  too  little  ?  In 
mamma's  day,  it  seems,  a  girl  could  keep  her  place  in  so 
ciety,  by  hard  economy,  and  spend  only  fifty  dollars  a  year 
on  her  dress.  Mamma  found  a  hundred  dollars  ample.  I 
have  more  than  that,  and  find  myself  quite  straitened  to 
keep  myself  looking  well.  I  don't  want  to  live  for  dress, 
to  give  all  my  time  and  thoughts  to  it  ;  I  don't  wish  to  be 
extravagant :  and  yet  I  wish  to  be  lady-like  —  it  annoys 
and  makes  me  unhappy  not  to  be  fresh  and  neat  and  nice, 
shabbiness  and  seediness  are  my  aversion.  I  don't  see 
where  the  fault  is.  Can  one  individual  resist  the  whole 
current  of  society  ?  It  certainly  is  not  strictly  necessary  for 
us  girls  to  have  half  the  things  we  do.  We  might,  I  suppose, 
live  without  many  of  them,  and,  as  mamma  says,  look  just 


118  HOUSE  AND  HOME  PAPERS 

as  well,  because  girls  did  so  before  these  things  were  in 
vented.  Now  I  confess  I  flatter  myself,  generally,  that  I 
am  a  pattern  of  good  management  and  economy,  because 
I  get  so  much  less  than  other  girls  I  associate  with.  I 
wish  you  could  see  Miss  Thome's  fall  dresses  that  she 
showed  me  last  year  when  she  was  visiting  here.  She  had 
six  gowns,  and  no  one  of  them  could  have  cost  less  than 
seventy  or  eighty  dollars,  and  some  of  them  must  have  been 
even  more  expensive,  and  yet  I  don't  doubt  that  this  fall 
she  will  feel  that  she  must  have  just  as  many  more.  She 
runs  through  and  wears  out  these  expensive  things,  with 
all  their  velvet  and  thread  lace,  just  as  I  wear  my  common 
est  ones  ;  and  at  the  end  of  the  season  they  are  really  gone, 
—  spotted,  stained,  frayed,  the  lace  all  pulled  to  pieces,  — 
nothing  left  to  save  or  make  over.  I  feel  as  if  Jenny  and 
I  were  patterns  of  economy  when  I  see  such  things.  I 
really  don't  know  what  economy  is.  What  is  it  ?  " 

"  There  is  the  same  difficulty  in  my  housekeeping,"  said 
my  wife.  "  I  think  I  am  an  economist.  I  mean  to  be  one. 
All  our  expenses  are  on  a  modest  scale,  and  yet  I  can  see 
much  that  really  is  not  strictly  necessary ;  but  if  I  com 
pare  myself  with  some  of  my  neighbors,  I  feel  as  if  I  were 
hardly  respectable.  There  is  no  subject  on  which  all  the 
world  are  censuring  one  another  so  much  as  this.  Hardly 
any  one  but  thinks  her  neighbors  extravagant  in  some  one 
or  more  particulars,  and  takes  for  granted  that  she  herself  is 
an  economist." 

"  I  '11  venture  to  say,"  said  I,  "  that  there  is  n't  a  woman 
of  my  acquaintance  that  does  not  think  she  is  an  econo 
mist." 

"  Papa  is  turned  against  us  women,  like  all  the  rest  of 
them,"  said  Jenny.  "  I  wonder  if  it  is  n't  just  so  with 
the  men  ?  " 

"  Yes,"  said  Marianne,  "  it 's  the  fashion  to  talk  as  if 
all  the  extravagance  of  the  country  was  perpetrated  by 


ECONOMY  119 

women.  For  my  part,  I  think  young  men  are  just  as  ex 
travagant.  Look  at  the  sums  they  spend  for  cigars  and 
meerschaums,  —  an  expense  which  has  n't  even  the  pretense 
of  usefulness  in  any  way ;  it 's  a  purely  selfish,  nonsensical 
indulgence.  When  a  girl  spends  money  in  making  herself 
look  pretty,  she  contributes  something  to  the  agreeableness 
of  society ;  but  a  man's  cigars  and  pipes  are  neither  orna 
mental  nor  useful." 

"  Then  look  at  their  dress,"  said  Jenny :  "  they  are  to 
the  full  as  fussy  and  particular  about  it  as  girls  ;  they  have 
as  many  fine,  invisible  points  of  fashion,  and  their  fashions 
change  quite  as  often  ;  and  they  have  just  as  many  knick- 
knacks,  with  their  studs  and  their  sleeve  buttons  and  waist 
coat  buttons,  their  scarfs  and  scarf  pins,  their  watch  chains 
and  seals  and  seal  rings,  and  nobody  knows  what.  Then 
they  often  waste  and  throw  away  more  than  women,  because 
they  are  not  good  judges  of  material,  nor  saving  in  what 
they  buy,  and  have  no  knowledge  of  how  things  should  be 
cared  for,  altered,  or  mended.  If  their  cap  is  a  little  too 
tight,  they  cut  the  lining  with  a  penknife,  or  slit  holes  in 
a  new  shirt-collar  because  it  does  not  exactly  fit  to  their 
mind.  For  my  part,  I  think  men  are  naturally  twice  as 
wasteful  as  women.  A  pretty  thing,  to  be  sure,  to  have 
all  the  waste  of  the  country  laid  to  us  !  " 

"  You  are  right,  child,"  said  I  ;  "  women  are  by  nature, 
as  compared  with  men,  the  care-taking  and  saving  part  of 
creation,  —  the  authors  and  conservators  of  economy.  As 
a  general  rule,  man  earns  and  woman  saves  and  applies. 
The  wastefulness  of  woman  is  commonly  the  fault  of  man." 

"I  don't  see  into  that,"  said  Bob  Stevens. 

"  In  this  way.  Economy  is  the  science  of  proportion. 
Whether  a  particular  purchase  is  extravagant  depends 
mainly  on  the  income  it  is  taken  from.  Suppose  a  woman 
has  a  hundred  and  fifty  a  year  for  her  dress,  and  gives  fifty 
dollars  for  a  bonnet,  she  gives  a  third  of  her  income,  — 


120          HOUSE  AND  HOME  PAPEES 

it  is  a  horrible  extravagance  ;  while  for  the  woman  whose 
income  is  ten  thousand  it  may  be  no  extravagance  at  all. 
The  poor  clergyman's  wife,  when  she  gives  five  dollars  for 
a  bonnet,  may  be  giving  as  much  in  proportion  to  her 
income  as  the  woman  who  gives  fifty.  Now  the  difficulty 
with  the  greater  part  of  women  is,  that  the  men,  who  make 
the  money  and  hold  it,  give  them  no  kind  of  standard  by 
which  to  measure  their  expenses.  Most  women  and  girls 
are  in  this  matter  entirely  at  sea,  without  chart  or  compass. 
They  don't  know  in  the  least  what  they  have  to  spend. 
Husbands  and  fathers  often  pride  themselves  about  not  say 
ing  a  word  on  business  matters  to  their  wives  and  daughters. 
They  don't  wish  them  to  understand  them,  or  to  inquire 
into  them,  or  to  make  remarks  or  suggestions  concerning 
them.  f  I  want  you  to  have  everything  that  is  suitable 
and  proper/  says  Jones  to  his  wife,  (  but  don't  be  extrav 
agant.7 

"'But,  my  dear,'  says  Mrs.  Jones,  'what  is  suitable  and 
proper  depends  very  much  on  our  means  ;  if  you  could 
allow  me  any  specific  sum  for  dress  and  housekeeping,  I 
could  tell  better.' 

"  ( Nonsense,  Susan  !  I  can't  do  that,  —  it 's  too  much 
trouble.  Get  what  you  need,  and  avoid  foolish  extrava 
gances  ;  that 's  all  I  ask.' 

"  By  and  by  Mrs.  Jones's  bills  are  sent  in,  in  an  evil 
hour,  when  Jones  has  heavy  notes  to  meet,  and  then  comes 
a  domestic  storm. 

"  '  I  shall  just  be  ruined,  madam,  if  that  ''s  the  way  you 
are  going  on.  I  can't  afford  to  dress  you  and  the  girls  in 
the  style  you  have  set  up  :  look  at  this  milliner's  bill  ! ' 

"  { I  assure  you,'  says  Mrs.  Jones,  '  we  have  n't  got  any 
more  than  the  Stebbinses,  nor  so  much.' 

"  '  Don't  you  know  that  the  Stebbinses  are  worth  five 
times  as  much  as  ever  I  was  ?  ' 

"  No,  Mrs.   Jones  did  not   know  it :    how  should   she, 


ECONOMY  121 

when  her  husband  makes  it  a  rule  never  to  speak  of  his 
business  to  her,  and  she  has  not  the  remotest  idea  of  his 
income  ? 

"  Thus  multitudes  of  good,  conscientious  women  and  girls 
are  extravagant  from  pure  ignorance.  The  male  provider 
allows  bills  to  be  run  up  in  his  name,  and  they  have  no 
earthly  means  of  judging  whether  they  are  spending  too 
much  or  too  little,  except  the  semi-annual  hurricane  which 
attends  the  coming  in  of  these  bills. 

"  The  first  essential  in  the  practice  of  economy  is  a  know 
ledge  of  one's  income,  and  the  man  who  refuses  to  accord 
to  his  wife  and  children  this  information  has  never  any 
right  to  accuse  them  of  extravagance,  because  he  himself 
deprives  them  of  that  standard  of  comparison  which  is  an 
indispensable  requisite  in  economy.  As  early  as  possible  in 
the  education  of  children,  they  should  pass  from  that  state 
of  irresponsible  waiting  to  be  provided  for  by  parents,  and 
be  trusted  with  the  spending  of  some  fixed  allowance,  that 
they  may  learn  prices  and  values,  and  have  some  notion  of 
what  money  is  actually  worth  and  what  it  will  bring.  The 
simple  fact  of  the  possession  of  a  fixed  and  definite  income 
often  suddenly  transforms  a  giddy,  extravagant  girl  into 
a  care-taking,  prudent  little  woman.  Her  allowance  is  her 
own  j  she  begins  to  plan  upon  it,  —  to  add,  subtract,  mul 
tiply,  divide,  and  do  numberless  sums  in  her  little  head. 
She  no  longer  buys  everything  she  fancies  ;  she  deliberates, 
weighs,  compares.  And  now  there  is  room  for  self-denial 
and  generosity  to  come  in.  She  can  do  without  this  article  ; 
she  can  furbish  up  some  older  possession  to  do  duty  a  little 
longer,  and  give  this  money  to  some  friend  poorer  than  she ; 
and  ten  to  one  the  girl  whose  bills  last  year  were  four  or 
five  hundred  finds  herself  bringing  through  this  year  cred 
itably  on  a  hundred  and  fifty.  To  be  sure,  she  goes  with 
out  numerous  things  which  she  used  to  have.  From  the 
standpoint  of  a  fixed  income  she  sees  that  these  are  impos- 


122  HOUSE  AND  HOME  PAPERS 

sible,  and  no  more  wants  them  than  the  green  cheese  of  the 
moon.  She  learns  to  make  her  own  taste  and  skill  take  the 
place  of  expensive  purchases.  She  refits  her  hats  and  bon 
nets,  retrims  her  dresses,  and  in  a  thousand  busy,  earnest, 
happy  little  ways  sets  herself  to  make  the  most  of  her  small 
income. 

"  So  the  woman  who  has  her  definite  allowance  for  house 
keeping  finds  at  once  a  hundred  questions  set  at  rest.  Be 
fore  it  was  not  clear  to  her  why  she  should  not  '  go  and  do 
likewise  '  in  relation  to  every  purchase  made  by  her  next 
neighbor.  Now,  there  is  a  clear  logic  of  proportion.  Cer 
tain  things  are  evidently  not  to  be  thought  of,  though  next 
neighbors  do  have  them  ;  and  we  must  resign  ourselves  to 
find  some  other  way  of  living." 

"  My  dear,"  said  my  wife,  "  I  think  there  is  a  peculiar 
temptation  in  a  life  organized  as  ours  is  in  America.  There 
are  here  no  settled  classes,  with  similar  ratios  of  income. 
Mixed  together  in  the  same  society,  going  to  the  same  par 
ties,  and  blended  in  daily  neighborly  intercourse,  are  fam 
ilies  of  the  most  opposite  extremes  in  point  of  fortune.  In 
England  there  is  a  very  well  understood  expression,  that 
people  should  not  dress  or  live  above  their  station  ;  in  Amer 
ica  none  will  admit  that  they  have  any  particular  station, 
or  that  they  can  live  above  it.  The  principle  of  democratic 
equality  unites  in  society  people  of  the  most  diverse  posi 
tions  and  means. 

"  Here,  for  instance,  is  a  family  like  Dr.  Selden's  :  an 
old  and  highly  respected  one,  with  an  income  of  only  two 
or  three  thousand  ;  yet  they  are  people  universally  sought 
for  in  society,  and  mingle  in  all  the  intercourse  of  life  with 
merchant  millionaires  whose  incomes  are  from  ten  to  thirty 
thousand.  Their  sons  and  daughters  go  to  the  same  schools, 
the  same  parties,  and  are  thus  constantly  meeting  upon  terms 
of  social  equality. 

"  Now  it  seems  to  me  that  our  danger  does  not  lie  in  the 


ECONOMY  123 

great  and  evident  expenses  of  our  richer  friends.  We  do 
not  expect  to  have  pineries,  graperies,  equipages,  horses, 
diamonds,  —  we  say  openly  and  of  course  that  we  do  not. 
Still,  our  expenses  are  constantly  increased  by  the  proximity 
of  these  things,  unless  we  understand  ourselves  better  than 
most  people  do.  We  don't,  of  course,  expect  to  get  a  fifteen- 
hundred-dollar  Cashmere,  like  Mrs.  So-and-so,  but  we  begin 
to  look  at  hundred-dollar  shawls  and  nibble  about  the  hook. 
We  don't  expect  sets  of  diamonds,  but  a  diamond  ring,  a 
pair  of  solitaire  diamond  ear-rings,  begin  to  be  speculated 
about  among  the  young  people  as  among  possibilities.  We 
don't  expect  to  carpet  our  house  with  Axminster  and  hang 
our  windows  with  damask,  but  at  least  we  must  have  Brus 
sels  and  brocatelle,  —  it  would  not  do  not  to.  And  so  we 
go  on  getting  hundreds  of  things  that  we  don't  need,  that 
have  no  real  value  except  that  they  soothe  our  self-love  ; 
and  for  these  inferior  articles  we  pay  a  higher  proportion  of 
our  income  than  our  rich  neighbor  does  for  his  better  ones. 
Nothing  is  uglier  than  low-priced  Cashmere  shawls  ;  and  yet 
a  young  man  just  entering  business  will  spend  an  eighth  of 
a  year's  income  to  put  one  on  his  wife,  and  when  he  has  put 
it  there  it  only  serves  as  a  constant  source  of  disquiet,  for, 
now  that  the  door  is  opened  and  Cashmere  shawls  are  pos 
sible,  she  is  consumed  with  envy  at  the  superior  ones  con 
stantly  sported  around  her.  So,  also,  with  point-lace,  velvet 
dresses,  and  hundreds  of  things  of  that  sort,  which  belong 
to  a  certain  rate  of  income,  and  are  absurd  below  it." 

"  And  yet,  mamma,  I  heard  Aunt  Easygo  say  that  vel 
vet,  point-lace,  and  Cashmere  were  the  cheapest  finery  that 
could  be  bought,  because  they  lasted  a  lifetime." 

"Aunt  Easygo  speaks  from  an  income  of  ten  thousand  a 
year  :  they  may  be  cheap  for  her  rate  of  living ;  but  for  us,  for 
example,  by  no  magic  of  numbers  can  it  be  made  to  appear 
that  it  is  cheaper  to  have  the  greatest  bargain  in  the  world 
in  Cashmere,  lace,  and  diamonds  than  not  to  have  them  at 


124  HOUSE   AND    HOME    PAPERS 

all.  I  never  had  a  diamond,  never  wore  a  piece  of  point- 
lace,  never  had  a  velvet  dress,  and  have  been  perfectly 
happy,  and  just  as  much  respected  as  if  I  had.  Who  ever 
thought  of  objecting  to  me  for  not  having  them  ?  Nobody, 
that  I  ever  heard." 

"  Certainly  not,  mamma,"  said  Marianne. 

"  The  thing  I  have  always  said  to  you  girls  is,  that 
you  were  not  to  expect  to  live  like  richer  people,  not  to  be 
gin  to  try,  not  to  think  or  inquire  about  certain  rates  of  ex 
penditure,  or  take  the  first  step  in  certain  directions.  We 
have  moved  on  all  our  life  after  a  very  antiquated  and  old- 
fashioned  mode.  We  have  had  our  little,  old-fashioned 
house,  our  little  old-fashioned  ways." 

"  Except  the  parlor  carpet,  and  what  came  of  it,  my 
dear,"  said  I  mischievously. 

"  Yes,  except  the  parlor  carpet,"  said  my  wife,  with  a 
conscious  twinkle,  "  and  the  things  that  came  of  it ;  there 
was  a  concession  there,  but  one  can't  be  wise  always." 

"  We  talked  mamma  into  that,"   said  Jenny. 

"  But  one  thing  is  certain,"  said  my  wife,  —  "  that, 
though  I  have  had  an  antiquated,  plain  house,  and  plain 
furniture,  and  plain  dress,  and  not  the  beginning  of  a  thing 
such  as  many  of  my  neighbors  have  possessed,  I  have  spent 
more  money  than  many  of  them  for  real  comforts.  While 
I  had  young  children,  I  kept  more  and  better  servants  than 
many  women  who  wore  Cashmere  and  diamonds.  I  thought 
it  better  to  pay  extra  wages  to  a  really  good,  trusty  woman 
who  lived  with  me  from  year  to  year,  and  relieved  me  of 
some  of  my  heaviest  family  cares,  than  to  have  ever  so 
much  lace  locked  away  in  my  drawers.  We  always  were 
able  to  go  into  the  country  to  spend  our  summers,  and  to 
keep  a  good  family  horse  and  carriage  for  daily  driving,  — 
by  which  means  we  afforded,  as  a  family,  very  poor  patron 
age  to  the  medical  profession.  Then  we  built  our  house, 
and,  while  we  left  out  a  great  many  expensive  common- 


ECONOMY  125 

places  that  other  people  think  they  must  have,  we  put  in  a 
profusion  of  bathing  accommodations  such  as  very  few  peo 
ple  think  of  having.  There  never  was  a  time  when  we  did 
not  feel  able  to  afford  to  do  what  was  necessary  to  preserve 
or  to  restore  health ;  and  for  this  I  always  drew  on  the  sur 
plus  fund  laid  up  by  my  very  unfashionable  housekeeping 
and  dressing." 

"  Your  mother  has  had/7  said  I,  "  what  is  the  great  want 
in  America,  perfect  independence  of  mind  to  go  her  own 
way  without  regard  to  the  way  others  go.  I  think  there  is, 
for  some  reason,  more  false  shame  among  Americans  about 
economy  than  among  Europeans.  '  I  cannot  afford  it '  is 
more  seldom  heard  among  us.  A  young  man  beginning 
life,  whose  income  may  be  from  five  to  eight  hundred  a 
year,  thinks  it  elegant  and  gallant  to  affect  a  careless  air 
about  money,  especially  among  ladies,  —  to  hand  it  out 
freely,  and  put  back  his  change  without  counting  it,  —  to 
wear  a  watch  chain  and  studs  and  shirt-fronts  like  those 
of  some  young  millionaire.  None  but  the  most  expensive 
tailors,  shoemakers,  and  hatters  will  do  for  him ;  and  then 
he  grumbles  at  the  dearness  of  living,  and  declares  that  he 
cannot  get  along  on  his  salary.  The  same  is  true  of  young 
girls,  and  of  married  men  and  women,  too,  —  the  whole  of 
them  are  ashamed  of  economy.  The  cares  that  wear  out 
life  and  health  in  many  households  are  of  a  nature  that 
cannot  be  cast  on  God,  or  met  by  any  promise  from  the 
Bible  :  it  is  not  care  for  {  food  convenient,'  or  for  com 
fortable  raiment,  but  care. to  keep  up  false  appearances,  and 
to  stretch  a  narrow  income  over  the  space  that  can  be  cov 
ered  only  by  a  wider  one. 

"  The  poor  widow  in  her  narrow  lodgings,  with  her 
monthly  rent  staring  her  hourly  in  the  face,  and  her  bread 
and  meat  and  candles  and  meal  all  to  be  paid  for  on  delivery 
or  not  obtained  at  all,  may  find  comfort  in  the  good  old 
Book,  reading  of  that  other  widow  whose  wasting  measure 


126  HOUSE  AND  HOME  PAPERS 

of  oil  and  last  failing  handful  of  meal  were  of  such  account 
before  her  Father  in  heaven  that  a  prophet  was  sent  to 
recruit  them  5  and  when  customers  do  not  pay,  or  wages 
are  cut  down,  she  can  enter  into  her  chamber,  and,  when  she 
hath  shut  her  door,  present  to  her  Father  in  heaven  His 
sure  promise  that  with  the  fowls  of  the  air  she  shall  be  fed 
arid  with  the  lilies  of  the  field  she  shall  be  clothed :  but 
what  promises  are  there  for  her  who  is  racking  her  brains 
on  the  ways  and  means  to  provide  as  sumptuous  an  enter 
tainment  of  oysters  and  champagne  at  her  next  party  as 
her  richer  neighbor,  or  to  compass  that  great  bargain  which 
shall  give  her  a  point-lace  set  almost  as  handsome  as  that 
of  Mrs.  Croesus,  who  has  ten  times  her  income  ?  " 

"  But,  papa,"  said  Marianne,  with  a  twinge  of  that  exact 
ing  sensitiveness  by  which  the  child  is  characterized,  "  I 
think  I  am  an  economist,  thanks  to  you  and  mamma,  so  far 
as  knowing  just  what  my  income  is,  and  keeping  within  it ; 
but  that  does  not  satisfy  me,  and  it  seems  that  is  n't  all 
of  economy ;  the  question  that  haunts  me  is,  Might  I  not 
make  my  little  all  do  more  and  better  than  I  do  ?  " 

"  There,"  said  I,  "  you  have  hit  the  broader  and  deeper 
signification  of  economy,  which  is,  in  fact,  the  science  of 
comparative  values.  In  its  highest  sense,  economy  is  a 
just  judgment  of  the  comparative  value  of  things,  —  money 
only  the  means  of  enabling  one  to  express  that  value. 
This  is  the  reason  why  the  whole  matter  is  so  full  of  diffi 
culty,  —  why  every  one  criticises  his  neighbor  in  this 
regard.  Human  beings  are  so  various,  the  necessities  of 
each  are  so  different,  they  are  made  comfortable  or  uncom 
fortable  by  such  opposite  means,  that  the  spending  of  other 
people's  incomes  must  of  necessity  often  look  unwise  from 
our  standpoint.  For  this  reason  multitudes  of  people  who 
cannot  be  accused  of  exceeding  their  incomes  often  seem  to 
others  to  be  spending  them  foolishly  and  extravagantly." 

"  But  is  there  no  standard  of  value  ?  "   said  Marianne. 


ECONOMY  127 

"  There  are  certain  things  upon  which  there  is  a  pretty 
general  agreement,  verbally,  at  least,  among  mankind.  For 
instance,  it  is  generally  agreed  that  health  is  an  indispensa 
ble  good,  —  that  money  is  well  spent  that  secures  it,  and 
worse  than  ill  spent  that  ruins  it. 

"  With  this  standard  in  mind,  how  much  money  is  wasted 
even  by  people  who  do  not  exceed  their  income  !  Here 
a  man  builds  a  house,  and  pays,  in  the  first  place,  ten 
thousand  more  than  he  need,  for  a  location  in  a  fashion 
able  part  of  the  city,  though  the  air  will  be  closer  and  the 
chances  of  health  less  ;  he  spends  three  or  four  thousand 
more  on  a  stone  front,  on  marble  mantels  imported  from 
Italy,  on  plate-glass  windows,  plated  hinges,  and  a  thousand 
nice  points  of  finish,  and  has  perhaps  but  one  bath-room 
for  a  whole  household,  and  that  so  connected  with  his  own 
apartment  that  nobody  but  himself  and  his  wife  can  use  it. 

"  Another  man  buys  a  lot  in  an  open,  airy  situation, 
which  fashion  has  not  made  expensive,  and  builds  without 
a  stone  front,  marble  mantels,  or  plate-glass  windows,  but 
has  a  perfect  system  of  ventilation  through  his  house,  and 
bathing-rooms  in  every  story,  so  that  the  children  and  guests 
may  all,  without  inconvenience,  enjoy  the  luxury  of  abun 
dant  water. 

"  The  first  spends  for  fashion  and  show,  the  second  for 
health  and  comfort. 

"  Here  is  a  man  that  will  buy  his  wife  a  diamond  bracelet 
and  a  lace  shawl,  and  take  her  yearly  to  Washington  to  show 
off  her  beauty  in  ball  dresses,  who  yet  will  not  let  her  pay 
wages  which  will  command  any  but  the  poorest  and  most 
inefficient  domestic  service.  The  woman  is  worn  out,  her 
life  made  a  desert  by  exhaustion  consequent  on  a  futile 
attempt  to  keep  up  a  showy  establishment  with  only  half 
the  hands  needed  for  the  purpose.  Another  family  will 
give  brilliant  parties,  have  a  gay  season  every  year  at  the 
first  hotels  at  Newport,  and  not  be  able  to  afford  the  wife  a 


128  HOUSE    AND    HOME    TAPERS 

fire  in  her  chamber  in  midwinter,  or  the  servants  enough 
food  to  keep  them  from  constantly  deserting.  The  damp, 
mouldy,  dingy  cellar-kitchen,  the  cold,  windy,  desolate  attic, 
devoid  of  any  comfort,  where  the  domestics  are  doomed  to 
pass  their  whole  time,  are  witnesses  to  what  such  families 
consider  economy.  Economy  in  the  view  of  some  is  undis 
guised  slipshod  slovenliness  in  the  home  circle  for  the  sake 
of  fine  clothes  to  be  shown  abroad ;  it  is  undisguised  hard 
selfishness  to  servants  and  dependants,  counting  their  every 
approach  to  comfort  a  needless  waste,  —  grudging  the 
Roman  Catholic  cook  her  cup  of  tea  at  dinner  on  Friday, 
when  she  must  not  eat  meat,  —  and  murmuring  that  a 
cracked,  second-hand  looking-glass  must  be  got  for  the  ser 
vants'  room  :  what  business  have  they  to  want  to  know  how 
they  look  ? 

"  Some  families  will  employ  the  cheapest  physician,  with 
out  regard  to  his  ability  to  kill  or  cure  ;  some  will  treat 
diseases  in  their  incipiency  with  quack  medicines,  bought 
cheap,  hoping  thereby  to  fend  off  the  doctor's  bill.  Some 
women  seem  to  be  pursued  by  an  evil  demon  of  economy, 
which,  like  an  ignis  fatuus  in  a  bog,  delights  constantly  to 
tumble  them  over  into  the  mire  of  expense.  They  are  dis 
mayed  at  the  quantity  of  sugar  in  the  recipe  for  preserves, 
leave  out  a  quarter,  and  the  whole  ferments  and  is  spoiled. 
They  cannot  by  any  means  be  induced  at  any  one  time  to 
buy  enough  silk  to  make  a  dress,  and  the  dress  finally,  after 
many  convulsions  and  alterations,  must  be  thrown  by  alto 
gether  as  too  scanty.  They  get  poor  needles,  poor  thread, 
poor  sugar,  poor  raisins,  poor  tea,  poor  coal.  One  wonders, 
in  -looking  at  their  blackened,  smouldering  grates  in  a  freez 
ing  day,  what  the  fire  is  there  at  all  for,  —  it  certainly 
warms  nobody.  The  only  thing  they  seem  likely  to  be 
lavish  in  is  funeral  expenses,  which  come  in  the  wake  of 
leaky  shoes  and  imperfect  clothing.  These  funeral  expenses 
at  last  swallow  all,  since  nobody  can  dispute  an  under- 


ECONOMY  129 

taker's  bill.  One  pities  these  joyless  beings.  Economy, 
instead  of  a  rational  act  of  the  judgment,  is  a  morbid  mono 
mania,  eating  the  pleasure  out  of  life,  and  haunting  them 
to  the  grave. 

"  Some  people's  ideas  of  economy  seem  to  run  simply  in 
the  line  of  eating.  Their  flour  is  of  an  extra  brand,  their 
meat  the  first  cut ;  the  delicacies  of  every  season,  in  their 
dearest  stages,  come  home  to  their  table  with  an  apologetic 
smile,  —  '  It  was  scandalously  dear,  my  love,  but  I  thought 
we  must  just  treat  ourselves.'  And  yet  these  people  cannot 
afford  to  buy  books,  and  pictures  they  regard  as  an  un- 
thought-of  extravagance.  Trudging  home  with  fifty  dollars' 
worth  of  delicacies  on  his  arm,  Smith  meets  Jones,  who  is 
exulting  with  a  bag  of  crackers  under  one  arm  and  a  choice 
little  bit  of  an  oil  painting  under  the  other,  which  he  thinks 
a  bargain  at  fifty  dollars.  '  I  can't  afford  to  buy  pictures,' 
Smith  says  to  his  spouse,  '  and  I  don't  know  how  Jones 
and  his  wife  manage.'  Jones  and  his  wife  will  live  on 
bread  and  milk  for  a  month,  and  she  will  turn  her  best 
gown  the  third  time,  but  they  will  have  their  picture,  and 
they  are  happy.  Jones's  picture  remains,  and  Smith's  fifty 
dollars'  worth  of  oysters  and  canned  fruit  to-morrow  will  be 
gone  forever.  Of  all  modes  of  spending  money,  the  swal 
lowing  of  expensive  dainties  brings  the  least  return.  There 
is  one  step  lower  than  this,  —  the  consuming  of  luxuries 
that  are  injurious  to  the  health.  If  all  the  money  spent  on 
tobacco  and  liquors  could  be  spent  in  books  and  pictures,  I 
predict  that  nobody's  health  would  be  a  whit  less  sound,  and 
houses  would  be  vastly  more  attractive.  There  is  enough 
money  spent  in  smoking,  drinking,  and  over-eating  to  give 
every  family  in  the  community  a  good  library,  to  hang 
everybody's  parlor  walls  with  lovely  pictures,  to  set  up  in 
every  house  a  conservatory  which  should  bloom  all  winter 
with  choice  flowers,  to  furnish  every  dwelling  with  ample 
bathing  and  warming  accommodations,  even  down  to  the 


130  HOUSE  AND  HOME  PAPERS 

dwellings  of  the  poor  ;  and  in  the  millennium  I  believe  this 
is  the  way  things  are  to  be. 

"  In  these  times  of  peril  and  suffering,  if  the  inquiry 
arises,  How  shall  there  be  retrenchment  ?  I  answer,  First 
and  foremost,  retrench  things  needless,  doubtful,  and  posi 
tively  hurtful,  as  rum,  tobacco,  and  all  the  meerschaums  of 
divers  colors  that  do  accompany  the  same.  Second,  retrench 
all  eating  not  necessary  to  health  and  comfort.  A  French 
family  would  live  in  luxury  on  the  leavings  that  are  con 
stantly  coming  from  the  •  tables  of  those  who  call  them 
selves  in  middling  circumstances.  There  are  superstitions 
of  the  table  that  ought  to  be  broken  through.  Why  must 
you  always  have  cake  in  your  closet  ?  why  need  you  feel 
undone  to  entertain  a  guest  with  no  cake  on  your  tea-table  ? 
Do  without  it  a  year,  and  ask  yourselves  if  you  or  your 
children,  or  any  one  else,  have  suffered  materially  in  conse 
quence. 

"  Why  is  it  imperative  that  you  should  have  two  or  three 
courses  at  every  meal  ?  Try  the  experiment  of  having  but 
one,  and  that  a  very  good  one,  and  see  if  any  great  amount 
of  suffering  ensues.  Why  must  social  intercourse  so  largely 
consist  in  eating  ?  In  Paris  there  is  a  very  pretty  custom. 
Each  family  has  one  evening  in  the  week  when  it  stays  at 
home  and  receives  friends.  Tea,  with  a  little  bread  and 
butter  and  cake,  served  in  the  most  informal  way,  is  the 
only  refreshment.  The  rooms  are  full,  busy,  bright,  — 
everything  as  easy  and  joyous  as  if  a  monstrous  supper, 
with  piles  of  jelly  and  mountains  of  cake,  were  waiting  to 
give  the  company  a  nightmare  at  the  close. 

"  Said  a  lady,  pointing  to  a  gentleman  and  his  wife  in 
a  social  circle  of  this  kind,  f  I  ought  to  know  them  well, 
—  I  have  seen  them  every  week  for  twenty  years.'  It  is 
certainly  pleasant  and  confirmative  of  social  enjoyment  for 
friends  to  eat  together ;  but  a  little  enjoyed  in  this  way 
answers  the  purpose  as  well  as  a  great  deal,  and  better,  too." 


ECONOMY  131 

"  Well,  papa,"  said  Marianne,  "  in  the  matter  of  dress, 
now,  — how  much  ought  one  to  spend  just  to  look  as  others 
do  ?  " 

"  I  will  tell  you  what  I  saw  the  other  night,  girls,  in 
the  parlor  of  one  of  our  hotels.  Two  middle-aged  Quaker 
ladies  came  gliding  in,  with  calm,  cheerful  faces,  and  lus 
trous  dove-colored  silks.  By  their  conversation  I  found 
that  they  belonged  to  that  class  of  women  among  the 
Friends  who  devote  themselves  to  traveling  on  missions  of 
benevolence.  They  had  just  completed  a  tour  of  all  the 
hospitals  for  wounded  soldiers  in  the  country,  where  they 
had  been  carrying  comforts,  arranging,  advising,  and  sooth 
ing  by  their  cheerful,  gentle  presence.  They  were  now 
engaged  on  another  mission,  to  the  lost  and  erring  of  their 
own  sex  ;  night  after  night,  guarded  by  a  policeman,  they 
had  ventured  after  midnight  into  the  dance-houses  where 
girls  are  being  led  to  ruin,  and  with  gentle  words  of  tender, 
motherly  counsel  sought  to  win  them  from  their  fatal  ways, 
—  telling  them  where  they  might  go  the  next  day  to  find 
friends  who  would  open  to  them  an  asylum  and  aid  them 
to  seek  a  better  life. 

"  As  I  looked  upon  these  women,  dressed  with  such  mod 
est  purity,  I  began  secretly  to  think  that  the  Apostle  was 
not  wrong  when  he  spoke  of  women  adorning  themselves 
with  the  ornament  of  a  meek  and  quiet  spirit;  for  the 
habitual  gentleness  of  their  expression,  the  calmness  and 
purity  of  the  lines  in  their  faces,  the  delicacy  and  simplicity 
of  their  apparel,  seemed  of  themselves  a  rare  and  peculiar 
beauty.  I  could  not  help  thinking  that  fashionable  bon 
nets,  flowing  lace  sleeves,  and  dresses  elaborately  trimmed 
could  not  have  improved  even  their  outward  appearance. 
Doubtless  their  simple  wardrobe  needed  but  a  small  trunk 
in  traveling  from  place  to  place,  and  hindered  but  little 
their  prayers  and  ministrations. 

"  Now,  it  is  true,  all  women  are  not  called  to  such  a  life 


132  HOUSE  AND  HOME  PAPERS 

as  this ;  but  might  not  all  women  take  a  leaf  at  least  from 
their  book  ?  I  submit  the  inquiry  humbly.  It  seems  to 
me  that  there  are  many  who  go  monthly  to  the  sacrament, 
and  receive  it  with  sincere  devotion,  and  who  give  thanks 
each  time  sincerely  that  they  are  thus  made  (  members  in 
corporate  in  the  mystical  body  of  Christ/  who  have  never 
thought  of  this  membership  as  meaning  that  they  should 
share  Christ's  sacrifices  for  lost  souls,  or  abridge  them 
selves  of  one  ornament  or  encounter  one  inconvenience  for 
the  sake  of  those  wandering  sheep  for  whom  he  died.  Cer 
tainly  there  is  a  higher  economy  which  we  need  to  learn,  — 
that  which  makes  all  things  subservient  to  the  spiritual  and 
immortal,  and  that  not  merely  to  the  good  of  our  own  souls 
and  those  of  our  family,  but  of  all  who  are  knit  with  us  in 
the  great  bonds  of  human  brotherhood. 

"  There  have  been  from  time  to  time,  among  well-mean 
ing  Christian  people,  retrenchment  societies  on  high  moral 
grounds,  which  have  failed  for  want  of  knowledge  how  to 
manage  the  complicated  question  of  necessaries  and  luxu 
ries.  These  words  have  a  signification  in  the  case  of  dif 
ferent  people  as  varied  as  the  varieties  of  human  habit  and 
constitution.  It  is  a  department  impossible  to  be  bound 
by  external  rules,  but  none  the  less  should  every  high- 
minded  Christian  soul  in  this  matter  have  a  law  unto  itself. 
It  may  safely  be  laid  down  as  a  general  rule,  that  no  in 
come,  however  large  or  however  small,  should  be  unblessed 
by  the  divine  touch  of  self-sacrifice.  Something  for  the 
poor,  the  sorrowing,  the  hungry,  the  tempted,  and  the  weak 
should  be  taken  from  ivkat  is  our  own  at  the  expense  of 
some  personal  sacrifice,  or  we  suffer  more  morally  than  the 
brother  from  whom  we  withdraw  it.  Even  the  Lord  of  all, 
when  dwelling  among  men.  out  of  that  slender  private  purse 
which  he  accepted  for  his  little  family  of  chosen  ones,  had 
ever  something  reserved  to  give  to  the  poor.  It  is  easy  to 
say,  '  It  is  but  a  drop  in  the  bucket.  I  cannot  remove  the 


SERVANTS  133 

great  mass  of  misery  in  the  world.  What  little  I  could 
save  or  give  does  nothing.'  It  does  this,  if  no  more,  —  it 
prevents  one  soul,  and  that  soul  your  own,  from  drying 
and  hardening  into  utter  selfishness  and  insensibility  ;  it 
enables  you  to  say,  I  have  done  something ;  taken  one  atom 
from  the  great  heap  of  sins  and  miseries  and  placed  it  on 
the  side  of  good. 

"  The  Sisters  of  Charity  and  the  Friends,  each  with  their 
different  costume  of  plainness  and  self-denial,  and  other 
noble-hearted  women  of  no  particular  outward  order,  but 
kindred  in  spirit,  have  shown  to  womanhood,  on  the  battle 
field  and  in  the  hospital,  a  more  excellent  way,  — a  beauty 
and  nobility  before  which  all  the  common  graces  and  orna 
ments  of  the  sex  fade,  appear  like  dim  candles  by  the  pure, 
eternal  stars." 

IX 

SERVANTS 

In  the  course  of  my  papers  various  domestic  revolutions 
have  occurred.  Our  Marianne  has  gone  from  us  with  a 
new  name  to  a  new  life,  and  a  modest  little  establishment 
not  many  squares  off  claims  about  as  much  of  my  wife's 
and  Jenny's  busy  thoughts  as  those  of  the  proper  mistress. 

Marianne,  as  I  always  foresaw,  is  a  careful  and  some 
what  anxious  housekeeper.  Her  tastes  are  fastidious ;  she 
is  made  for  exactitude :  the  smallest  departures  from  the 
straight  line  appear  to  her  shocking  deviations.  She  had 
always  lived  in  a  house  where  everything  had  been  formed 
to  quiet  and  order  under  the  ever-present  care  and  touch  of 
her  mother ;  nor  had  she  ever  participated  in  those  cares 
more  than  to  do  a  little  dusting  of  the  parlor  ornaments, 
or  wash  the  best  china,  or  make  sponge-cake  or  chocolate- 
caramels.  Certain  conditions  of  life  had  always  appeared 
so  to  be  matters  of  course  that  she  had  never  conceived  of 


134  HOUSE  AND  HOME  PAPERS 

a  house  without  them.  It  never  occurred  to  her  that  such 
bread  and  biscuit  as  she  saw  at  the  home  table  would  not 
always  and  of  course  appear  at  every  table,  —  that  the  sil 
ver  would  not  always  be  as  bright,  the  glass  as  clear,  the 
salt  as  fine  and  smooth,  the  plates  and  dishes  as  nicely  ar 
ranged,  as  she  had  always  seen  them,  apparently  without 
the  thought  or  care  of  any  one  ;  for  my  wife  is  one  of  those 
housekeepers  whose  touch  is  so  fine  that  no  one  feels  it. 
She  is  never  heard  scolding  or  reproving,  —  never  enter 
tains  her  company  with  her  recipes  for  cookery  or  the  faults 
of  her  servants.  She  is  so  unconcerned  about  receiving  her 
own  personal  share  of  credit  for  the  good  appearance  of  her 
establishment  that  even  the  children  of  the  house  have 
not  supposed  that  there  is  any  particular  will  of  hers  in  the 
matter :  it  all  seems  the  natural  consequence  of  having 
very  good  servants. 

One  phenomenon  they  had  never  seriously  reflected  on, 
—  that,  under  all  the  changes  of  the  domestic  cabinet  which 
are  so  apt  to  occur  in  American  households,  the  same  coffee, 
the  same  bread  and  biscuit,  the  same  nicely  prepared  dishes 
and  neatly  laid  table,  always  gladdened  their  eyes  ;  and  from 
this  they  inferred  only  that  good  servants  were  more  abun 
dant  than  most  people  had  supposed.  They  were  somewhat 
surprised  when  these  marvels  were  wrought  by  professedly 
green  hands,  but  were  given  to  suppose  that  these  green 
hands  must  have  had  some  remarkable  quickness  or  apti 
tude  for  acquiring.  That  sparkling  jelly,  well-flavored  ice 
creams,  clear  soups,  and  delicate  biscuits  could  be  made  by 
a  raw  Irish  girl,  fresh  from  her  native  Erin,  seemed  to 
them  a  proof  of  the  genius  of  the  race ;  and  my  wife,  who 
never  felt  it  important  to  attain  to  the  reputation  of  a  cook, 
quietly  let  it  pass. 

For  some  time,  therefore,  after  the  inauguration  of  the 
new  household,  there  was  trouble  in  the  camp.  Sour  bread 
had  appeared  on  the  table ;  bitter,  acrid  coffee  had  shocked 


SERVANTS  135 

and  astonished  the  palate ;  lint  had  been  observed  on 
tumblers,  and  the  spoons  had  sometimes  dingy  streaks 
on  the  brightness  of  their  first  bridal  polish  ;  beds  were 
detected  made  shockingly  awry  :  and  Marianne  came  burn 
ing  with  indignation  to  her  mother. 

"  Such  a  little  family  as  we  have,  and  two  strong  girls," 
said  she,  —  "  every  thing  ought  to  be  perfect ;  there  is  really 
nothing  to  do.  Think  of  a  whole  batch  of  bread  absolutely 
sour !  and  when  I  gave  that  away,  then  this  morning  an 
other  exactly  like  it !  and  when  I  talked  to  cook  about  it, 
she  said  she  had  lived  in  this  and  that  family,  and  her  bread 
had  always  been  praised  as  equal  to  the  baker's  !  " 

"  I  don't  doubt  she  is  right,"  said  I.  "  Many  families 
never  have  anything  but  sour  bread  from  one  end  of  the 
year  to  the  other,  eating  it  unperceiving,  and  with  good 
cheer ;  and  they  buy  also  sour  bread  of  the  baker,  with  like 
approbation,  —  lightness  being  in  their  estimation  the  only 
virtue  necessary  in  the  article." 

"  Could  you  not  correct  her  fault  ?  "  suggested  my  wife. 

"  I  have  done  all  I  can.  I  told  her  we  could  not  have 
such  bread,  that  it  was  dreadful ;  Bob  says  it  would  give 
him  the  dyspepsia  in  a  week ;  and  then  she  went  and  made 
exactly  the  same  !  It  seems  to  me  mere  willfulness." 

"  But,"  said  I,  "  suppose,  instead  of  such  general  direc 
tions,  you  should  analyze  her  proceedings  and  find  out  just 
where  she  makes  her  mistake :  is  the  root  of  the  trouble 
in  the  yeast,  or  in  the  time  she  begins  it,  letting  it  rise  too 
long  ?  —  the  time,  you  know,  should  vary  so  much  with 
the  temperature  of  the  weather." 

"  As  to  that,"  said  Marianne,  "  I  know  nothing.  I  never 
noticed  ;  it  never  was  my  business  to  make  bread ;  it  always 
seemed  quite  a  simple  process,  mixing  yeast  and  flour  and 
kneading  it ;  and  our  bread  at  home  was  always  good." 

"  It  seems,  then,  my  dear,  that  you  have  come  to  your 
profession  without  even  having  studied  it." 


136  HOUSE  AND  HOME  PAPERS 

My  wife  smiled  and  said,  — 

"  You  know,  Marianne,  I  proposed  to  you  to  be  our 
family  bread-maker  for  one  month  of  the  year  before  you 
married." 

"  Yes,  mamma,  I  remember ;  but  I  was  like  other  girls : 
I  thought  there  was  no  need  of  it.  I  never  liked  to  do  such 
things ;  perhaps  I  had  better  have  done  it." 

"  You  certainly  had,"  said  I,  "  for  the  first  business  of 
a  housekeeper  in  America  is  that  of  a  teacher.  She  can 
have  a  good  table  only  by  having  practical  knowledge,  and 
tact  in  imparting  it.  If  she  understands  her  business  practi 
cally  and  experimentally,  her  eye  detects  at  once  the  weak 
spot ;  it  requires  only  a  little  tact,  some  patience,  some 
clearness  in  giving  directions,  and  all  comes  right.  I  ven 
ture  to  say  that  your  mother  would  have  exactly  such  bread 
as  always  appears  on  our  table,  and  have  it  by  the  hands 
of  your  cook,  because  she  could  detect  and  explain  to  her 
exactly  her  error." 

"  Do  you  know,"  said  my  wife,  "  what  yeast  she  uses  ?  " 

"  I  believe,"  said  Marianne,  "  it 's  a  kind  she  makes  her 
self.  I  think  I  heard  her  say  so.  I  know  she  makes  a 
great  fuss  about  it,  and  rather  values  herself  upon  it.  She 
is  evidently  accustomed  to  being  praised  for  her  bread,  and 
feels  mortified  and  angry,  and  I  don't  know  how  to  manage 
her." 

"  Well,"  said  I,  "  if  you  carry  your  watch  to  a  watch 
maker,  and  undertake  to  show  him  how  to  regulate  the 
machinery,  he  laughs  and  goes  on  his  own  way  ;  but  if  a 
brother-machinist  makes  suggestions,  he  listens  respectfully. 
So,  when  a  woman  who  knows  nothing  of  woman's  work 
undertakes  to  instruct  one  who  knows  more  than  she  does, 
she  makes  no  impression  ;  but  a  woman  who  has  been  trained 
experimentally,  and  shows  she  understands  the  matter  thor 
oughly,  is  listened  to  with  respect." 

"  I  think,"   said  my  wife,  "  that  your  Bridget  is  worth 


SERVANTS  137 

teaching.  She  is  honest,  well-principled,  and  tidy.  She  has 
good  recommendations  from  excellent  families,  whose  ideas 
of  good  bread,  it  appears,  differ  from  ours ;  and  with  a  little 
good-nature,  tact,  and  patience,  she  will  come  into  your  ways." 

"  But  the  coffee,  mamma,  —  you  would  not  imagine  it  to 
be  from  the  same  bag  with  your  own,  so  dark  and  so  bitter ; 
what  do-  you  suppose  she  has  done  to  it  ?  " 

"  Simply  this,"  said  my  wife.  "  She  has  let  the  berries 
stay  a  few  moments  too  long  over  the  fire,  —  they  are  burnt, 
instead  of  being  roasted  ;  and  there  are  people  who  think  it 
essential  to  good  coffee  that  it  should  look  black,  and  have 
a  strong,  bitter  flavor.  A  very  little  change  in  the  prepar 
ing  will  alter  this." 

"Now,"  said  I,  "  Marianne,  if  you  want  my  advice,  I  '11 
give  it  to  you  gratis  :  make  your  own  bread  for  one  month. 
Simple  as  the  process  seems,  I  think  it  will  take  as  long  as 
that  to  give  you  a  thorough  knowledge  of  all  the  possibili 
ties  in  the  case  ;  but  after  that  you  will  never  need  to  make 
any  more,  —  you  will  be  able  to  command  good  bread  by  the 
aid  of  all  sorts  of  servants ;  you  will,  in  other  words,  be  a 
thoroughly  prepared  teacher." 

"  I  did  not  think,"  said  Marianne,  "  that  so  simple  a  thing 
required  so  much  attention." 

"It  is  simple,"  said  my  wife,  "  and  yet  requires  a  delicate 
care  and  watchfulness.  There  are  fifty  ways  to  spoil  good 
bread  ;  there  are  a  hundred  little  things  to  be  considered 
and  allowed  for  that  require  accurate  observation  and  experi 
ence.  The  same  process  that  will  raise  good  bread  in  cold 
weather  will  make  sour  bread  in  the  heat  of  summer ;  dif 
ferent  qualities  of  flour  require  variations  in  treatment,  as 
also  different  sorts  and  conditions  of  yeast  j  and  when  all  is 
done,  the  baking  presents  another  series  of  possibilities  which 
require  exact  attention." 

"  So  it  appears,"  said  Marianne  gayly,  "  that  I  must  be 
gin  to  study  my  profession  at  the  eleventh  hour." 


138  HOUSE  AND  HOME  PAPERS 

"  Better  late  than  never,"  said  I.  "  But  there  is  this 
advantage  on  your  side  :  a  well-trained  mind,  accustomed  to 
reflect,  analyze,  and  generalize,  has  an  advantage  over  uncul 
tured  minds  even  of  double  experience.  Poor  as  your  cook 
is,  she  now  knows  more  of  her  business  than  you  do.  After 
a  very  brief  period  of  attention  and  experiment  you  will  not 
only  know  more  than  she  does,  but  you  will  convince  her 
that  you  do,  which  is  quite  as  much  to  the  purpose." 

"  In  the  same  manner,"  said  my  wife,  "  you  will  have  to 
give  lessons  to  your  other  girl  on  the  washing  of  silver  and 
the  making  of  beds.  Good  servants  do  not  often  come  to 
us  :  they  must  be  made  by  patience  and  training  ;  and  if  a 
girl  has  a  good  disposition  and  a  reasonable  degree  of  handi- 
ness,  and  the  housekeeper  understands  her  profession,  she 
may  make  a  good  servant  out  of  an  indifferent  one.  Some 
of  my  best  girls  have  been  those  who  came  to  me  directly 
from  the  ship,  with  no  preparation  but  docility  and  some 
natural  quickness.  The  hardest  cases  to  be  managed  are 
not  of  those  who  have  been  taught  nothing,  but  of  those 
who  have  been  taught  wrongly,  —  who  come  to  you  self- 
opinionated,  with  ways  which  are  distasteful  to  you,  and 
contrary  to  the  genius  of  your  housekeeping.  Such  require 
that  their  mistress  shall  understand  at  least  so  much  of  the 
actual  conduct  of  affairs  as  to  prove  to  the  servant  that  there 
are  better  ways  than  those  in  which  she  has  hitherto  been 
trained." 

"  Don't  you  think,  mamma,"  said  Marianne,  "  that  there 
has  been  a  sort  of  reaction  against  woman's  work  in  our 
day  ?  So  much  has  been  said  of  the  higher  sphere  of  wo 
man,  and  so  much  has  been  done  to  find  some  better  work 
for  her,  that  insensibly,  I  think,  almost  everybody  begins  to 
feel  that  it  is  rather  degrading  for  a  woman  in  good  society 
to  be  much  tied  down  to  family  affairs." 

"  Especially,"  said  my  wife,  "  since  in  these  Woman's 
Eights  Conventions  there  is  so  much  indignation  expressed 


SERVANTS  139 

at  those  who  would  confine  her  ideas  to  the  kitchen  and 
nursery." 

"There  is  reason  in  all  things,"  said  I.  " Woman's 
Eights  Conventions  are  a  protest  against  many  former  ab 
surd,  unreasonable  ideas,  —  the  mere  physical  and  culinary 
idea  of  womanhood  as  connected  only  with  puddings  and 
shirt-buttons,  the  unjust  and  unequal  burdens  which  the 
laws  of  harsher  ages  had  cast  upon  the  sex.  Many  of  the 
women  connected  with  these  movements  are  as  superior  in 
everything  properly  womanly  as  they  are  in  exceptional 
talent  and  culture.  There  is  no  manner  of  doubt  that  the 
sphere  of  woman  is  properly  to  be  enlarged,  and  that  repub 
lican  governments  in  particular  are  to  be  saved  from  corrup 
tion  and  failure  only  by  allowing  to  woman  this  enlarged 
sphere.  Every  woman  has  rights  as  a  human  being  first, 
which  belong  to  no  sex,  and  ought  to  be  as  freely  conceded 
to  her  as  if  she  were  a  man,  —  and,  first  and  foremost,  the 
great  right  of  doing  anything  which  God  and  Nature  evi 
dently  have  fitted  her  to  excel  in.  If  she  be  made  a  nat 
ural  orator,  like  Miss  Dickinson,  or  an  astronomer,  like  Mrs. 
Somerville,  or  a  singer,  like  Grisi,  let  not  the  technical 
rules  of  womanhood  be  thrown  in  the  way  of  her  free  use 
of  her  powers.  Nor  can  there  be  any  reason  shown  why  a 
woman's  vote  in  the  state  should  not  be  received  with  as 
much  respect  as  in  the  family.  A  state  is  but  an  associa 
tion  of  families,  and  laws  relate  to  the  rights  and  immuni 
ties  which  touch  woman's  most  private  and  immediate  wants 
and  dearest  hopes ;  and  there  is  no  reason  why  sister,  wife, 
and  mother  should  be  more  powerless  in  the  state  than 
in  the  home.  Nor  does  it  make  a  woman  unwomanly  to 
express  an  opinion  by  dropping  a  slip  of  paper  into  a  box, 
more  than  to  express  that  same  opinion  by  conversation. 
In  fact,  there  is  no  doubt  that,  in  all  matters  relating  to  the 
interests  of  education,  temperance,  and  religion,  the  state 
would  be  a  material  gainer  by  receiving  the  votes  of  women. 


140          HOUSE  AND  HOME  PAPERS 

"  But,  having  said  all  this,  I  must  admit,  per  contra,  not 
only  a  great  deal  of  crude,  disagreeable  talk  in  these  con 
ventions,  but  a  too  great  tendency  of  the  age  to  make  the 
education  of  women  anti-domestic.  It  seems  as  if  the  world 
never  could  advance  except  like  ships  under  a  head  wind, 
tacking  and  going  too  far,  now  in  this  direction  and  now 
in  the  opposite.  Our  common-school  system  now  rejects 
sewing  from  the  education  of  girls,  which  very  properly 
used  to  occupy  many  hours  daily  in  school  a  generation  ago. 
The  daughters  of  laborers  and  artisans  are  put  through  al 
gebra,  geometry,  trigonometry,  and  the  higher  mathematics, 
to  the  entire  neglect  of  that  learning  which  belongs  distinc 
tively  to  woman.  A  girl  cannot  keep  pace  with  her  class 
if  she  gives  any  time  to  domestic  matters,  and  accordingly 
she  is  excused  from  them  all  during  the  whole  term  of  her 
education.  The  boy  of  a  family,  at  an  early  age,  is  put  to 
a  trade,  or  the  labors  of  a  farm ;  the  father  becomes  impa 
tient  of  his  support,  and  requires  of  him  to  care  for  him 
self.  Hence  an  interrupted  education,  —  learning  coming  by 
snatches  in  the  Avinter  months,  or  in  the  intervals  of  work. 
As  the  result,  the  females  in  our  country  towns  are  com 
monly,  in  mental  culture,  vastly  in  advance  of  the  males  of 
the  same  household  ;  but  with  this  comes  a  physical  deli 
cacy,  the  result  of  an  exclusive  use  of  the  brain  and  a  neg 
lect  of  the  muscular  system,  Avith  great  inefficiency  in  prac 
tical  domestic  duties.  The  race  of  strong,  hardy,  cheerful 
girls,  that  used  to  grow  up  in  country  places,  and  made 
the  bright,  neat,  New  England  kitchens  of  old  times,  —  the 
girls  that  could  wash,  iron,  brew,  bake,  harness  a  horse  and 
drive  him,  no  less  than  braid  straw,  embroider,  draw,  paint, 
and  read  innumerable  books,  —  this  race  of  women,  pride 
of  olden  time,  is  daily  lessening ;  and  in  their  stead  come 
the  fragile,  easily  fatigued,  languid  girls  of  a  modern  age, 
drilled  in  book-learning,  ignorant  of  common  things.  The 
great  danger  of  all  this,  and  of  the  evils  that  come  from  it, 


SERVANTS  141 

is  that  society  by  and  by  will  turn  as  blindly  against  female 
intellectual  culture  as  it  now  advocates  it,  and,  having 
worked  disproportionately  one  way,  will  work  disproportion 
ately  in  the  opposite  direction." 

"  The  fact  is,"  said  my  wife,  "  that  domestic  service  is 
the  great  problem  of  life  here  in  America ;  the  happiness 
of  families,  their  thrift,  well-being,  and  comfort,  are  more 
affected  by  this  than  by  any  one  thing  else.  Our  girls,  as 
they  have  been  brought  up,  cannot  perform  the  labor  of 
their  own  families,  as  in  those  simpler,  old-fashioned  days 
you  tell  of  ;  and,  what  is  worse,  they  have  no  practical  skill 
with  which  to  instruct  servants,  and  servants  come  to  us, 
as  a  class,  raw  and  untrained ;  so  what  is  to  be  done  ?  In 
the  present  state  of  prices,  the  board  of  a  domestic  costs 
double  her  wages,  and  the  waste  she  makes  is  a  more  serious 
matter  still.  Suppose  you  give  us  an  article  upon  this  sub 
ject  in  your  '  House  and  Home  Papers.'  You  could  not 
have  a  better  one." 

So  I  sat  down,  and  wrote  thus  on 

SERVANTS    AND    SERVICE 

Many  of  the  domestic  evils  in  America  originate  in  the 
fact  that,  while  society  here  is  professedly  based  on  new 
principles  which  ought  to  make  social  life  in  every  respect 
different  from  the  life  of  the  Old  World,  yet  these  princi 
ples  have  never  been  so  thought  out  and  applied  as  to  give 
consistency  and  harmony  to  our  daily  relations.  America 
starts  with  a  political  organization  based  on  a  declaration 
of  the  primitive  freedom  and  equality  of  all  men.  Every 
human  being,  according  to  this  principle,  stands  on  the 
same  natural  level  with  every  other,  and  has  the  same  chance 
to  rise,  according  to  the  degree  of  power  or  capacity  given 
by  the  Creator.  All  our  civil  institutions  are  designed  to 
preserve  this  equality,  as  far  as  possible,  from  generation  to 


142  HOUSE  AND  HOME  PAPERS 

generation :  there  is  no  entailed  property,  there  are  no 
hereditary  titles,  no  monopolies,  no  privileged  classes,  — 
all  are  to  be  as  free  to  rise  and  fall  as  the  waves  of  the  sea. 

The  condition  of  domestic  service,  however,  still  retains 
about  it  something  of  the  influences  from  feudal  times,  and 
from  the  near  presence  of  slavery  in  neighboring  States. 
All  English  literature,  all  the  literature  of  the  world,  de 
scribes  domestic  service  in  the  old  feudal  spirit  and  with  the 
old  feudal  language,  which  regarded  the  master  as  belong 
ing  to  a  privileged  class  and  the  servant  to  an  inferior  one. 
There  is  not  a  play,  not  a  poem,  not  a  novel,  not  a  history, 
that  does  not  present  this  view.  The  master's  rights,  like 
the  rights  of  kings,  were  supposed  to  rest  in  his  being  born 
in  a  superior  rank.  The  good  servant  was  one  who.  from 
childhood,  had  learned  "  to  order  himself  lowly  and  rever 
ently  to  all  his  betters."  When  New  England  brought  to 
these  shores  the  theory  of  democracy,  she  brought,  in  the 
persons  of  the  first  pilgrims,  the  habits  of  thought  and  of 
action  formed  in  aristocratic  communities.  Winthrop's  Jour 
nal,  and  all  the  old  records  of  the  earlier  colonists,  show 
households  where  masters  and  mistresses  stood  on  the  "  right 
divine "  of  the  privileged  classes,  howsoever  they  might 
have  risen  up  against  authorities  themselves. 

The  first  consequence  of  this  state  of  things  was  a  univer 
sal  rejection  of  domestic  service  in  all  classes  of  American- 
born  society.  For  a  generation  or  two,  there  was,  indeed, 
a  sort  of  interchange  of  family  strength,  —  sons  and  daugh 
ters  engaging  in  the  service  of  neighboring  families,  in  de 
fault  of  a  sufficient  working  force  of  their  own,  but  always 
on  conditions  of  strict  equality.  The  assistant  was  to  share 
the  table,  the  family  sitting-room,  and  every  honor  and  at 
tention  that  might  be  claimed  by  son  or  daughter.  When 
families  increased  in  refinement  and  education  so  as  to  make 
these  conditions  of  close  intimacy  with  more  uncultured 
neighbors  disagreeable,  they  had  to  choose  between  such  in- 


SERVANTS  143 

timacies  and  the  performance  of  their  own  domestic  toil. 
No  wages  could  induce  a  son  or  daughter  of  New  England 
to  take  the  condition  of  a  servant  on  terms  which  they 
thought  applicable  to  that  of  a  slave.  The  slightest  hint  of 
a  separate  table  was  resented  as  an  insult ;  not  to  enter  the 
front  door,  and  not  to  sit  in  the  front  parlor  on  state  occa 
sions,  was  bitterly  commented  on  as  a  personal  indignity. 

The  well-taught,  self-respecting  daughters  of  farmers,  the 
class  most  valuable  in  domestic  service,  gradually  retired 
from  it.  They  preferred  any  other  employment,  however 
laborious.  Beyond  all  doubt,  the  labors  of  a  well-regulated 
family  are  more  healthy,  more  cheerful,  more  interesting, 
because  less  monotonous,  than  the  mechanical  toils  of  a  fac 
tory  ;  yet  the  girls  of  New  England,  with  one  consent,  pre 
ferred  the  factory,  and  left  the  whole  business  of  domestic 
service  to  a  foreign  population ;  and  they  did  it  mainly  be 
cause  they  would  not  take  positions  in  families  as  an  infe 
rior  laboring  class  by  the  side  of  others  of  their  own  age 
who  assumed  as  their  prerogative  to  live  without  labor. 

"  I  can't  let  you  have  one  of  my  daughters,"  said  an  en 
ergetic  matron  to  her  neighbor  from  the  city,  who  was  seek 
ing  for  a  servant  in  her  summer  vacation  ;  "  if  you  had  n't 
daughters  of  your  own,  maybe  I  would  ;  but  my  girls  ain't 
going  to  work  so  that  your  girls  may  live  in  idleness.'7 

It  was  vain  to  offer  money.  "  We  don't  need  your  money, 
ma'am,  we  can  support  ourselves  in  other  ways ;  my  girls 
can  braid  straw  and  bind  shoes,  but  they  ain't  going  to  be 
slaves  to  anybody." 

In  the  Irish  and  German  servants  who  took  the  place  of 
Americans  in  families,  there  was,  to  begin  with,  the  tradi 
tion  of  education  in  favor  of  a  higher  class  ;  but  even  the 
foreign  population  became  more  or  less  infected  with  the 
spirit  of  democracy.  They  came  to  this  country  with  vague 
notions  of  freedom  and  equality,  and  in  ignorant  and  uncul 
tivated  people  such  ideas  are  often  more  unreasonable  for 


144  HOUSE   AND    HOME    PAPEKS 

being  vague.  They  did  not.  indeed,  claim  a  seat  at  the 
table  and  in  the  parlor,  but  they  repudiated  many  of  those 
habits  of  respect  and  courtesy  which  belonged  to  their 
former  condition,  and  asserted  their  own  will  and  way  in 
the  round,  unvarnished  phrase  which  they  supposed  to  be 
their  right  as  republican  citizens.  Life  became  a  sort  of  do 
mestic  wrangle  and  struggle  between  the  employers,  who 
secretly  confessed  their  weakness,  but  endeavored  openly  to 
assume  the  air  and  bearing  of  authority,  and  the  employed, 
who  knew  their  power  and  insisted  on  their  privileges. 
From  this  cause  domestic  service  in  America  has  had  less  of 
mutual  kindliness  than  in  old  countries.  Its  terms  have 
been  so  ill  understood  and  defined  that  both  parties  have 
assumed  the  defensive  ;  and  a  common  topic  of  conversation 
in  American  female  society  has  often  been  the  general  ser 
vile  war  which  in  one  form  or  another  was  going  on  in  their 
different  families,  —  a  war  as  interminable  as  would  be  a 
struggle  between  aristocracy  'and  common  people,  undefined 
by  any  bill  of  rights  or  constitution,  and  therefore  opening 
fields  for  endless  disputes.  In  England,  the  class  who  go  to 
service  are  a  class,  and  service  is  a  profession ;  the  distance 
between  them  and  their  employers  is  so  marked  and  defined, 
and  all  the  customs  and  requirements  of  the  position  are  so 
perfectly  understood,  that  the  master  or  mistress  has  no  fear 
of  being  compromised  by  condescension,  and  no  need  of  the 
external  voice  or  air  of  authority.  The  higher  up  in  the 
social  scale  one  goes,  the  more  courteous  seems  to  become 
the  intercourse  of  master  and  servant ;  the  more  perfect  and 
real  the  power,  the  more  is  it  veiled  in  outward  expression, 
—  commands  are  phrased  as  requests,  and  gentleness  of  voice 
and  manner  covers  an  authority  which  no  one  would  think 
of  offending  without  trembling. 

But  in  America  all  is  undefined.  In  the  first  place,  there 
is  no  class  who  mean  to  make  domestic  service  a  profession 
to  live  and  die  in.  It  is  universally  an  expedient,  a  step- 


SERVANTS  145 

ping-stone  to  something  higher ;  your  best  servants  always 
have  something  else  in  view  as  soon  as  they  have  laid  by  a 
little  money  ;  some  form  of  independence  which  shall  give 
them  a  home  of  their  own  is  constantly  in  mind.  Families 
look  forward  to  the  buying  of  landed  homesteads,  arid  the 
scattered  brothers  and  sisters  work  awhile  in  domestic  ser 
vice  to  gain  the  common  fund  for  the  purpose  ;  your  seam 
stress  intends  to  become  a  dressmaker,  and  take  in  work  at 
her  own  house ;  your  cook  is  pondering  a  marriage  with  the 
baker,  which  shall  transfer  her  toils  from  your  cooking- 
stove  to  her  own.  Young  women  are  eagerly  rushing  into 
every  other  employment,  till  female  trades  and  callings  are 
all  overstocked.  We  are  continually  harrowed  with  tales 
of  the  sufferings  of  distressed  needlewomen,  of  the  exac 
tions  and  extortions  practiced  on  the  frail  sex  in  the  many 
branches  of  labor  and  trade  at  which  they  try  their  hands ; 
and  yet  women  will  encounter  all  these  chances  of  ruin  and 
starvation  rather  than  make  up  their  minds  to  permanent 
domestic  service.  Now  what  is  the  matter  with  domestic 
service  ?  One  would  think,  on  the  face  of  it,  that  a  calling 
which  gives  a  settled  home,  a  comfortable  room,  rent-free, 
with  fire  and  lights,  good  board  and  lodging,  and  steady, 
well-paid  wages,  would  certainly  offer  more  attractions  than 
the  making  of  shirts  for  tenperice,  with  all  the  risks  of  pro 
viding  one's  own  sustenance  and  shelter. 

I  think  it  is  mainly  from  the  want  of  a  definite  idea  of 
the  true  position  of  a  servant  under  our  democratic  institu 
tions  that  domestic  service  is  so  shunned  and  avoided  in 
America,  that  it  is  the  very  last  thing  which  an  intelligent 
young  woman  will  look  to  for  a  living.  It  is  more  the 
want  of  personal  respect  toward  those  in  that  position  than 
the  labors  incident  to  it  which  repels  our  people  from  it. 
Many  would  be  willing  to  perform  these  labors,  but  they 
are  not  willing  to  place  themselves  in  a  situation  where 
their  self-respect  is  hourly  wounded  by  the  implication  of 


146  HOUSE  AND  HOME  PAPERS 

a  degree  of  inferiority  which  does  not  follow  any  kind  of 
labor  or  service  in  this  country  but  that  of  the  family. 

There  exists  in  the  minds  of  employers  an  unsuspected 
spirit  of  superiority,  which  is  stimulated  into  an  active  form 
by  the  resistance  which  democracy  inspires  in  the  working 
class.  Many  families  think  of  servants  only  as  a  necessary 
evil,  their  wages  as  exactions,  and  all  that  is  allowed  them 
as  so  much  taken  from  the  family  ;  and  they  seek  in  every 
way  to  get  from  them  as  much  and  to  give  them  as  little  as 
possible.  Their  rooms  are  the  neglected,  ill-furnished,  in 
commodious  ones,  —  and  the  kitchen  is  the  most  cheerless 
and  comfortless  place  in  the  house.  Other  families,  more 
good-natured  and  liberal,  provide  their  domestics  with  more 
suitable  accommodations,  and  are  more  indulgent ;  but  there 
is  still  a  latent  spirit  of  something  like  contempt  for  the 
position.  That  they  treat  their  servants  with  so  much  con 
sideration  seems  to  them  a  merit  entitling  them  to  the  most 
prostrate  gratitude ;  and  they  are  constantly  disappointed 
and  shocked  at  that  want  of  sense  of  inferiority  on  the  part 
of  these  people  which  leads  them  to  appropriate  pleasant 
rooms,  good  furniture,  and  good  living  as  mere  matters  of 
common  justice. 

It  seems  to  be  a  constant  surprise  to  some  employers  that 
servants  should  insist  on  having  the  same  human  wants  as 
themselves.  Ladies  who  yawn  in  their  elegantly  furnished 
parlors,  among  books  and  pictures,  if  they  have  not  company, 
parties,  or  opera  to  diversify  the  evening,  seem  astonished 
and  half  indignant  that  cook  and  chambermaid  are  more 
disposed  to  go  out  for  an  evening  gossip  than  to  sit  on  hard 
chairs  in  the  kitchen  where  they  have  been  toiling  all  day. 
The  pretty  chambermaid's  anxieties  about  her  dress,  the 
time  she  spends  at  her  small  and  not  very  clear  mirror,  are 
sneeringly  noticed  by  those  whose  toilet-cares  take  up  serious 
hours  ;  and  the  question  has  never  apparently  occurred  to 
them  why  a  serving-maid  should  not  want  to  look  pretty  as 


SERVANTS  147 

well  as  her  mistress.  She  is  a  woman  as  well  as  they,  with 
all  a  woman's  wants  and  weaknesses ;  and  her  dress  is  as 
much  to  her  as  theirs  to  them. 

A  vast  deal  of  trouble  among  servants  arises  from  imper 
tinent  interferences  and  petty  tyrannical  exactions  on  the 
part  of  employers.  Now  the  authority  of  the  master  and 
mistress  of  a  house  in  regard  to  their  domestics  extends 
simply  to  the  things  they  have  contracted  to  do  and  the 
hours  during  which  they  have  contracted  to  serve  ;  other 
wise  than  this,  they  have  no  more  right  to  interfere  with 
them  in  the  disposal  of  their  time  than  with  any  mechanic 
whom  they  employ.  They  have,  indeed,  a  right  to  regulate 
the  hours  of  their  own  household,  and  servants  can  choose 
between  conformity  to  these  hours  and  the  loss  of  their  situ 
ation  ;  but,  within  reasonable  limits,  their  right  to  come 
and  go  at  their  own  discretion,  in  their  own  time,  should  be 
unquestioned. 

If  employers  are  troubled  by  the  fondness  of  their  ser 
vants  for  dancing,  evening  company,  and  late  hours,  the 
proper  mode  of  proceeding  is  to  make  these  matters  a  sub 
ject  of  distinct  contract  in  hiring.  The  more  strictly  and 
perfectly  the  business  matters  of  the  first  engagement  of 
domestics  are  conducted,  the  more  likelihood  there  is  of 
mutual  quiet  and  satisfaction  in  the  relation.  It  is  quite 
competent  to  every  housekeeper  to  say  what  practices  are 
or  are  not  consistent  with  the  rules  of  her  family,  and  what 
will  be  inconsistent  with  the  service  for  which  she  agrees 
to  pay.  It  is  much  better  to  regulate  such  affairs  by  cool 
contract  in  the  outset  than  by  warm  altercations  and  pro 
tracted  domestic  battles. 

As  to  the  terms  of  social  intercourse,  it  seems  somehow 
to  be  settled  in  the  minds  of  many  employers  that  their 
servants  owe  them  and  their  family  more  respect  than  they 
and  the  family  owe  to  the  servants.  But  do  they  ?  What 
is  the  relation  of  servant  to  employer  in  a  democratic  coun- 


148  HOUSE    AND    HOME    PAPERS 

try  ?  Precisely  that  of  a  person  who  for  money  performs 
any  kind  of  service  for  you.  The  carpenter  comes  into  your 
house  to  put  up  a  set  of  shelves,  —  the  cook  comes  into 
your  kitchen  to  cook  your  dinner.  You  never  think  that 
the  carpenter  owes  you  any  more  respect  than  you  owe  to 
him  because  he  is  in  your  house  doing  your  behests ;  he  is 
your  fellow -citizen,  you  treat  him  with  respect,  you  expect 
to  be  treated  with  respect  by  him.  You  have  a  claim  on 
him  that  he  shall  do  your  work  according  to  your  directions, 
—  no  more.  Now  I  apprehend  that  there  is  a  very  common 
notion  as  to  the  position  and  rights  of  servants  which  is 
quite  different  from  this.  Is  it  not  a  common  feeling  that 
a  servant  is  one  who  may  be  treated  with  a  degree  of  free 
dom  by  every  member  of  the  family  which  he  or  she  may 
not  return  ?  Do  not  people  feel  at  liberty  to  question  ser 
vants  about  their  private  affairs,  to  comment  on  their  dress 
and  appearance,  in  a  manner  which  they  would  feel  to  be  an 
impertinence  if  reciprocated  ?  Do  they  not  feel  at  liberty 
to  express  dissatisfaction  with  their  performances  in  rude 
and  unceremonious  terms,  to  reprove  them  in  the  presence 
of  company,  while  yet  they  require  that  the  dissatisfaction 
of  servants  shall  be  expressed  only  in  terms  of  respect  ? 
A  woman  would  not  feel  herself  at  liberty  to  talk  to  her 
milliner  or  her  dressmaker  in  language  as  devoid  of  consid 
eration  as  she  will  employ  towards  her  cook  or  chambermaid. 
Yet  both  are  rendering  her  a  service  which  she  pays  for  in 
money,  and  one  is  no  more  made  her  inferior  thereby  than 
the  other.  Both  have  an  equal  right  to  be  treated  with 
courtesy.  The  master  and  mistress  of  a  house  have  a  right 
to  require  respectful  treatment  from  all  whom  their  roof 
shelters,  but  they  have  no  more  right  to  exact  it  of  servants 
than  of  every  guest  and  every  child,  and  they  themselves 
owe  it  as  much  to  servants  as  to  guests. 

In  order  that  servants  may  be  treated  with  respect  and 
courtesy,  it  is  not  necessary,  as  in  simpler  patriarchal  days, 


SERVANTS  149 

that  they  sit  at  the  family  table.  Your  carpenter  or  plumber 
does  not  feel  hurt  that  you  do  not  ask  him  to  dine  with 
you,  nor  your  milliner  and  mantua-maker  that  you  do  not 
exchange  ceremonious  calls  and  invite  them  to  your  parties. 
It  is  well  understood  that  your  relations  with  them  are  of  a 
mere  business  character.  They  never  take  it  as  an  assump 
tion  of  superiority  on  your  part  that  you  do  not  admit  them 
to  relations  of  private  intimacy.  There  may  be  the  most 
perfect  respect  and  esteem  and  even  friendship  between  them 
and  you,  notwithstanding.  So  it  may  be  in  the  case  of 
servants.  It  is  easy  to  make  any  person  understand  that 
there  are  quite  other  reasons  than  the  assumption  of  personal 
superiority  for  not  wishing  to  admit  servants  to  the  family 
privacy.  It  was  not,  in  fact,  to  sit  in  the  parlor  or  at  the 
table,  in  themselves  considered,  that  was  the  thing  aimed 
at  by  New  England  girls,  —  these  were  valued  only  as  signs 
that  they  were  deemed  worthy  of  respect  and  consideration, 
and,  where  freely  conceded,  were  often  in  point  of  fact 
declined. 

Let  servants  feel,  in  their  treatment  by  their  employers, 
and  in  the  atmosphere  of  the  family,  that  their  position  is 
held  to  be  a  respectable  one,  let  them  feel  in  the  mistress 
of  the  family  the  charm  of  unvarying  consideration  and 
good  manners,  let  their  work  rooms  be  made  convenient  and 
comfortable,  and  their  private  apartments  bear  some  reason 
able  comparison  in  point  of  agreeableness  to  those  of  other 
members  of  the  family,  and  domestic  service  will  be  more 
frequently  sought  by  a  superior  and  self-respecting  class. 
There  are  families  in  which  such  a  state  of  things  prevails ; 
and  such  families,  amid  the  many  causes  which  unite  to 
make  the  tenure  of  service  uncertain,  have  generally  been 
able  to  keep  good  permanent  servants. 

There  is  an  extreme  into  which  kindly  disposed  people 
often  run  with  regard  to  servants,  which  may  be  mentioned 
here.  They  make  pets  of  them.  They  give  extravagant 


150          HOUSE  AND  HOME  PAPERS 

wages  and  indiscreet  indulgences,  and,  through  indolence 
and  easiness  of  temper,  tolerate  neglect  of  duty.  Many  of 
the  complaints  of  the  ingratitude  of  servants  come  from 
those  who  have  spoiled  them  in  this  way  ;  while  many  of 
the  longest  and  most  harmonious  domestic  unions  have 
sprung  from  a  simple,  quiet  course  of  Christian  justice  and 
benevolence,  a  recognition  of  servants  as  fellow-beings  and 
fellow-Christians,  and  a  doing  to  them  as  we  would  in  like 
circumstances  that  they  should  do  to  us. 

The  mistresses  of  American  families,  whether  they  like 
it  or  not,  have  the  duties  of  missionaries  imposed  upon  them 
by  that  class  from  which  our  supply  of  domestic  servants  is 
drawn.  They  may  as  \vell  accept  the  position  cheerfully, 
and,  as  one  raw,  untrained  hand  after  another  passes  through 
their  family,  and  is  instructed  by  them  in  the  mysteries  of 
good  housekeeping,  comfort  themselves  with  the  reflection 
that  they  are  doing  something  to  form  good  wrives  and 
mothers  for  the  Kepublic. 

The  complaints  made  of  Irish  girls  are  numerous  and 
loud ;  the  failings  of  green  Erin,  alas  !  are  but  too  open  and 
manifest ;  yet,  in  arrest  of  judgment,  let  us  move  this  con 
sideration  :  let  us  imagine  our  own  daughters  between  the 
ages  of  sixteen  and  twenty- four,  untaught  and  inexperienced 
in  domestic  affairs  as  they  commonly  are,  shipped  to  a  for 
eign  shore  to  seek  service  in  families.  It  may  be  questioned 
whether  as  a  whole  they  would  do  much  better.  The  girls 
that  fill  our  families  and  do  our  housework  are  often  of  the 
age  of  our  own  daughters,  standing  for  themselves,  with 
out  mothers  to  guide  them,  in  a  foreign  country,  not  only 
bravely  supporting  themselves,  but  sending  home  in  every 
ship  remittances  to  impoverished  friends  left  behind.  If  our 
daughters  did  as  much  for  us,  should  we  not  be  proud  of 
their  energy  and  heroism  ? 

When  we  go  into  the  houses  of  our  country,  we  find  a 
majority  of  well-kept,  well-ordered,  and  even  elegant  estab- 


SERVANTS  151 

lishments  where  the  only  hands  employed  are  those  of  the 
daughters  of  Erin.  True,  American  women  have  been  their 
instructors,  and  many  a  weary  hour  of  care  have  they  had 
in  the  discharge  of  this  office  ;  but  the  result  on  the  whole 
is  beautiful  and  good,  and  the  end  of  it,  doubtless,  will  be 
peace. 

In  speaking  of  the  office  of  the  American  mistress  as 
being  a  missionary  one,  we  are  far  from  recommending  any 
controversial  interference  with  the  religious  faith  of  our 
servants.  It  is  far  better  to  incite  them  to  be  good  Chris 
tians  in  their  own  way  than  to  run  the  risk  of  shaking  their 
faith  in  all  religion  by  pointing  out  to  them  the  errors  of 
that  in  which  they  have  been  educated.  The  general  purity 
of  life  and  propriety  of  demeanor  of  so  many  thousands  of 
undefended  young  girls  cast  yearly  upon  our  shores,  with 
no  home  but  their  church,  and  no  shield  but  their  religion, 
are  a  sufficient  proof  that  this  religion  exerts  an  influence 
over  them  not  to  be  lightly  trifled  with.  But  there  is  a 
real  unity  even  in  opposite  Christian  forms ;  and  the  Roman 
Catholic  servant  and  the  Protestant  mistress,  if  alike  pos 
sessed  by  the  spirit  of  Christ,  and  striving  to  conform  to  the 
Golden  Rule,  cannot  help  being  one  in  heart,  though  one  go 
to  mass  and  the  other  to  meeting. 

Finally,  the  bitter  baptism  through  which  we  are  passing, 
the  life  blood  dearer  than  our  own  which  is  drenching  dis 
tant  fields,  should  remind  us  of  the  preciousness  of  distinc 
tive  American  ideas.  They  who  would  seek  in  their  foolish 
pride  to  establish  the  pomp  of  liveried  servants  in  America 
are  doing  that  which  is  simply  absurd.  A  servant  can  never 
in  our  country  be  the  mere  appendage  to  another  man,  to  be 
marked  like  a  sheep  with  the  color  of  his  owner  ;  he  must  be 
a  fellow-citizen,  with  an  established  position  of  his  own,  free 
to  make  contracts,  free  to  come  and  go,  and  having  in  his 
sphere  titles  to  consideration  and  respect  just  as  definite  as 
those  of  any  trade  or  profession  whatever. 


152          HOUSE  AND  HOME  PAPERS 

Moreover,  we  cannot  in  this  country  maintain  to  any  great 
extent  large  retinues  of  servants.  Even  with  ample  for 
tunes  they  are  forbidden  by  the  general  character  of  society 
here,  which  makes  them  cumbrous  and  difficult  to  manage. 
Every  mistress  of  a  family  knows  that  her  cares  increase 
with  every  additional  servant.  Two  keep  the  peace  with 
each  other  and  their  employer  ;  three  begin  a  possible  dis 
cord,  which  possibility  increases  with  four,  and  becomes 
certain  with  five  or  six.  Trained  housekeepers,  such  as 
regulate  the  complicated  establishments  of  the  Old  World, 
form  a  class  that  are  not,  and  from  the  nature  of  the  case 
never  will  be,  found  in  any  great  numbers  in  this  country. 
All  such  women,  as  a  general  thing,  are  keeping,  and  prefer 
to  keep,  houses  of  their  own. 

A  moderate  style  of  housekeeping,  small,  compact,  and 
simple  domestic  establishments,  must  necessarily  be  the 
general  order  of  life  in  America.  So  many  openings  of 
profit  are  to  be  found  in  this  country  that  domestic  service 
necessarily  wants  the  permanence  which  forms  so  agreeable 
a  feature  of  it  in  the  Old  World.  This  being  the  case,  it 
should  be  an  object  in  America  to  exclude  from  the  labors 
of  the  family  all  that  can,  with  greater  advantage,  be  exe 
cuted  out  of  it  by  combined  labor. 

Formerly,  in  New  England,  soap  and  candles  were  to  be 
made  in  each  separate  family  ;  now,  comparatively  few  take 
this  toil  upon  them.  We  buy  soap  of  the  soap-maker,  and 
candles  of  the  candle-factor.  This  principle  might  be  ex 
tended  much  further.  In  France  no  family  makes  its  own 
bread,  and  better  bread  cannot  be  eaten  than  what  can  be 
bought  at  the  appropriate  shops.  No  family  does  its  own 
washing  5  the  family's  linen  is  all  sent  to  women  who,  mak 
ing  this  their  sole  profession,  get  it  up  with  a  care  and 
nicety  which  can  seldom  be  equaled  in  any  family. 

How  would  it  simplify  the  burdens  of  the  American 
housekeeper  to  have  washing  and  ironing  day  expunged 


COOKERY  153 

from  her  calendar  !  How  much  more  neatly  and  compactly 
could  the  whole  domestic  system  be  arranged  !  If  all  the 
money  that  each  separate  family  spends  on  the  outfit  and 
accommodations  for  washing  and  ironing,  on  fuel,  soap, 
starch,  and  the  other  et  ceteras,  were  united  in  a  fund  to 
create  a  laundry  for  every  dozen  families,  one  or  two  good 
women  could  do  in  firstrate  style  what  now  is  very  indif 
ferently  done  by  the  disturbance  and  disarrangement  of  all 
other  domestic  processes  in  these  families.  Whoever  sets 
neighborhood  laundries  on  foot  will  do  much  to  solve  the 
American  housekeeper's  hardest  problem. 

Finally,  American  women  must  not  try  with  three  ser 
vants  to  carry  on  life  in  the  style  which  in  the  Old  World 
requires  sixteen :  they  must  thoroughly  understand,  and 
be  prepared  to  teach,  every  branch  of  housekeeping ;  they 
must  study  to  make  domestic  service  desirable  by  treating 
their  servants  in  a  way  to  lead  them  to  respect  themselves 
and  to  feel  themselves  respected ;  and  there  will  gradually 
be  evolved  from  the  present  confusion  a  solution  of  the 
domestic  problem  which  shall  be  adapted  to  the  life  of  a  new 
and  growing  world. 


COOKERY 

My  wife  and  I  were  sitting  at  the  open  bow-window  of 
my  study,  watching  the  tuft  of  bright-red  leaves  on  our 
favorite  maple,  which  warned  us  that  summer  was  over. 
I  was  solacing  myself,  like  all  the  world  in  our  days,  with 
reading  the  "  Schonberg  Cotta  Family,"  when  my  wife 
made  her  voice  heard  through  the  enchanted  distance,  and 
dispersed  the  pretty  vision  of  German  cottage  life. 

"  Chris  !  " 

"  Well,  my  dear." 


154  HOUSE   AND   HOME    PAPERS 

"  Do  you  know  the  day  of  the  month  ?  " 

Now  my  wife  knows  this  is  a  thing  that  I  never  do  know, 
that  I  can't  know,  and  in  fact  that  there  is  no  need  I 
should  trouble  myself  about,  since  she  always  knows,  and, 
what  is  more,  always  tells  me.  In  fact,  the  question,  when 
asked  by  her,  meant  more  than  met  the  ear.  It  was  a 
delicate  way  of  admonishing  me  that  another  paper  for 
the  "  Atlantic  "  ought  to  be  in  train ;  and  so  I  answered, 
not  to  the  external  form,  but  to  the  internal  intention,  — 

"  Well,  you  see,  my  dear,  I  have  n't  made  up  my  mind 
what  my  next  paper  shall  be  about.'7 

"  Suppose,  then,  you  let  me  give  you  a  subject." 

"  Sovereign  lady,  speak  on  !     Your  slave  hears  !  " 

"  Well,  then,  take  Cookery.  It  may  seem  a  vulgar  sub 
ject,  but  I  think  more  of  health  and  happiness  depends  on 
that  than  on  any  other  one  thing.  You  may  make  houses 
enchantingly  beautiful,  hang  them  with  pictures,  have  them 
clean  and  airy  and  convenient ;  but  if  the  stomach  is  fed  with 
sour  bread  and  burnt  coffee,  it  will  raise  such  rebellions 
that  the  eyes  will  see  no  beauty  anywhere.  Now,  in  the 
little  tour  that  you  and  I  have  been  taking  this  summer,  I 
have  been  thinking  of  the  great  abundance  of  splendid 
material  we  have  in  America,  compared  with  the  poor 
cooking.  How  often,  in  our  stoppings,  we  have  sat  down 
to  tables  loaded  with  material,  originally  of  the  very  best 
kind,  which  had  been  so  spoiled  in  the  treatment  that  there 
was  really  nothing  to  eat !  Green  biscuits  with  acrid  spots 
of  alkali ;  sour  yeast-bread ;  meat  slowly  simmered  in  fat 
till  it  seemed  like  grease  itself,  and  slowly  congealing  in 
cold  grease;  and,  above  all,  that  unpardonable  enormity, 
strong  butter !  How  often  I  have  longed  to  show  people 
what  might  have  been  done  with  the  raw  material  out  of 
which  all  these  monstrosities  were  concocted  !  " 

"  My  dear,"  said  I,  "  you  are  driving  me  upon  delicate 
ground.  Would  you  have  your  husband  appear  in  public 


COOKERY  155 

with  that  most  opprobrious  badge  of  the  domestic  furies,  a 
dishcloth,  pinned  to  his  coat-tail  ?  It  is  coming  to  exactly 
the  point  I  have  always  predicted,  Mrs.  Crowfield:  you 
must  write  yourself.  I  always  told  you  that  you  could 
write  far  better  than  I,  if  you  would  only  try.  Only  sit 
down  and  write  as  you  sometimes  talk  to  me,  and  I  might 
hang  up  my  pen  by  the  side  of  '  Uncle  Ned's '  fiddle  and 
bow." 

"  Oh,  nonsense  !  "  said  my  wife.  "  I  never  could  write. 
I  know  what  ought  to  be  said,  and  I  could  say  it  to  any 
one  ;  but  my  ideas  freeze  in  the  pen,  cramp  in  my  fingers, 
and  make  my  brain  seem  like  heavy  bread.  I  was  born  for 
extemporary  speaking.  Besides,  I  think  the  best  things  on 
all  subjects  in  this  world  of  ours  are  said,  not  by  the  practi 
cal  workers,  but  by  the  careful  observers.77 

"  Mrs.  Crowfield,  that  remark  is  as  good  as  if  I  had 
made  it  myself,"  said  I.  "  It  is  true  that  I  have  been  all 
my  life  a  speculator  and  observer  in  all  domestic  matters, 
having  them  so  confidentially  under  my  eye  in  our  own 
household ;  and  so,  if  I  write  on  a  pure  woman's  matter,  it 
must  be  understood  that  I  am  only  your  pen  and  mouth 
piece,  —  only  giving  tangible  form  to  wisdom  which  I  have 
derived  from  you." 

So  down  I  sat  and  scribbled,  while  my  sovereign  lady 
quietly  stitched  by  my  side.  And  here  I  tell  my  reader 
that  I  write  on  such  a  subject  under  protest,  —  declaring 
again  my  conviction  that,  if  my  wife  only  believed  in  her 
self  as  firmly  as  I  do,  she  would  write  so  that  nobody  would 
ever  want  to  listen  to  me  again. 

COOKERY 

We  in  America  have  the  raw  material  of  provision  in 
greater  abundance  than  any  other  nation.  There  is  no  coun 
try  where  an  ample,  well-furnished  table  is  more  easily 
spread,  and  for  that  reason,  perhaps,  none  where  the  boun- 


156  HOUSE   AND    HOME    PAPEKS 

ties  of  Providence  are  more  generally  neglected.  I  do  not 
mean  to  say  that  the  traveler  through  the  length  and 
breadth  of  our  land  could  not,  on  the  whole,  find  an  aver 
age  of  comfortable  subsistence  ;  yet,  considering  that  our 
resources  are  greater  than  those  of  any  other  civilized  peo 
ple,  our  results  are  comparatively  poorer. 

It  is  said  that,  a  list  of  the  summer  vegetables  which 
are  exhibited  on  New  York  hotel  tables  being  shown  to  a 
French  artiste,  he  declared  that  to  serve  such  a  dinner  prop 
erly  would  take  till  midnight.  I  recollect  how  I  was  once 
struck  with  our  national  plenteousness  on  returning  from  a 
Continental  tour,  and  going  directly  from  the  ship  to  a  New 
York  hotel,  in  the  bounteous  season  of  autumn.  For 
months  I  had  been  habituated  to  my  neat  little  bits  of  chop 
or  poultry  garnished  with  the  inevitable  cauliflower  or  po 
tato,  which  seemed  to  be  the  sole  possibility  after  the  reign 
of  green  peas  was  over.  Now  I  sat  down  all  at  once  to  a 
carnival  of  vegetables,  —  ripe,  juicy  tomatoes,  raw  or  cooked  ; 
cucumbers  in  brittle  slices ;  rich,  yellow  sweet  potatoes  ; 
broad  Lima-beans,  and  beans  of  other  and  various  names ; 
tempting  ears  of  Indian  corn  steaming  in  enormous  piles, 
and  great  smoking  tureens  of  the  savory  succotash,  an  In 
dian  gift  to  the  table  for  which  civilization  need  not  blush  ; 
sliced  egg-plant  in  delicate  fritters ;  and  marrow  squashes, 
of  creamy  pulp  and  sweetness  :  a  rich  variety,  embarrassing 
to  the  appetite,  and  perplexing  to  the  choice.  Verily,  the 
thought  has  often  impressed  itself  on  my  mind  that  the 
vegetarian  doctrine  preached  in  America  left  a  man  quite  as 
much  as  he  had  capacity  to  eat  or  enjoy,  and  that  in  the 
midst  of  such  tantalizing  abundance  he  really  lost  the  apol 
ogy  which  elsewhere  bears  him  out  in  preying  upon  his 
less  gifted  and  accomplished  animal  neighbors. 

But  with  all  this,  the  American  table,  taken  as  a  whole, 
is  inferior  to  that  of  England  or  France.  It  presents  a  fine 
abundance  of  material,  carelessly  and  poorly  treated.  The 


COOKERY  157 

management  of  food  is  nowhere  in  the  world,  perhaps,  more 
slovenly  and  wasteful.  Everything  betokens  that  want 
of  care  that  waits  on  abundance ;  there  are  great  capabili 
ties  and  poor  execution.  A  tourist  through  England  can 
seldom  fail,  at  the  quietest  country  inn,  of  finding  himself 
served  with  the  essentials  of  English  table  comfort,  —  his 
mutton-chop  done  to  a  turn,  his  steaming  little  private  ap 
paratus  for  concocting  his  own  tea,  his  choice  pot  of  marma 
lade  or  slice  of  cold  ham,  and  his  delicate  rolls  and  creamy 
butter,  all  served  with  care  and  neatness.  In  France,  one 
never  asks  in  vain  for  delicious  cafe-au-lait,  good  bread  and 
butter,  a  nice  omelet,  or  some  savory  little  portion  of  meat 
with  a  French  name.  But  to  a  tourist  taking  like  chance 
in  American  country  fare,  what  is  the  prospect  ?  What  is 
the  coffee  ?  what  the  tea  ?  and  the  meat  ?  and,  above  all, 
the  butter  ? 

In  lecturing  on  cookery,  as  on  housebuilding,  I  divide 
the  subject  into,  not  four,  but  five  grand  elements  :  first, 
Bread  ;  second,  Butter  ;  third,  Meat ;  fourth,  Vegetables  ; 
and  fifth,  Tea,  —  by  which  I  mean,  generically,  all  sorts  of 
warm,  comfortable  drinks  served  out  in  teacups,  whether 
they  be  called  tea,  coffee,  chocolate,  broma,  or  what  not. 

I  affirm  that,  if  these  five  departments  are  all  perfect, 
the  great  ends  of  domestic  cookery  are  answered,  so  far  as 
the  comfort  and  well-being  of  life  are  concerned.  I  am 
aware  that  there  exists  another  department,  which  is  often 
regarded  by  culinary  amateurs  and  young  aspirants  as  the 
higher  branch  and  very  collegiate  course  of  practical  cook 
ery  ;  to  wit,  confectionery,  by  which  I  mean  to  designate 
all  pleasing  and  complicated  compounds  of  sweets  and 
spices,  devised  not  for  health  and  nourishment,  and  strongly 
suspected  of  interfering  with  both,  —  mere  tolerated  gratifi 
cations  of  the  palate,  which  we  eat,  not  with  the  expectation 
of  being  benefited,  but  only  with  the  hope  of  not  being  in 
jured  by  them.  In  this  large  department  rank  all  sorts  of 


158  HOUSE   AND   HOME   PAPERS 

cakes,  pies,  preserves,  ices,  etc.  I  shall  have  a  word  or  two 
to  say  under  this  head  before  I  have  done.  I  only  remark 
now  that,  in  my  tours  about  the  country,  I  have  often  had 
a  virulent  ill-will  excited  towards  these  works  of  culinary 
supererogation,  because  I  thought  their  excellence  was  at 
tained  by  treading  under  foot  and  disregarding  the  five 
grand  essentials.  I  have  sat  at  many  a  table  garnished 
with  three  or  four  kinds  of  well-made  cake,  compounded 
with  citron  and  spices  and  all  imaginable  good  things, 
where  the  meat  was  tough  and  greasy,  the  bread  some  hot 
preparation  of  flour,  lard,  saleratus,  and  acid,  and  the  butter 
unutterably  detestable.  At  such  tables  I  have  thought 
that,  if  the  mistress  of  the  feast  had  given  the  care,  time, 
and  labor  to  preparing  the  simple  items  of  bread,  butter, 
and  meat  that  she  evidently  had  given  to  the  preparation 
of  these  extras,  the  lot  of  a  traveler  might  be  much  more 
comfortable.  Evidently  she  never  had  thought  of  these 
common  articles  as  constituting  a  good  table.  So  long  as 
she  had  puff  pastry,  rich  black  cake,  clear  jelly,  and  pre 
serves,  she  seemed  to  consider  that  such  unimportant  mat 
ters  as  bread,  butter,  and  meat  could  take  care  of  them 
selves.  It  is  the  same  inattention  to  common  things  as 
that  which  leads  people  to  build  houses  with  stone  fronts 
and  window-caps  and  expensive  front-door  trimmings,  with 
out  bathing-rooms  or  fireplaces  or  ventilators. 

Those  who  go  into  the  country  looking  for  summer  board 
in  farmhouses  know  perfectly  well  that  a  table  where  the 
butter  is  always  fresh,  the  tea  and  coffee  of  the  best  kinds 
and  well  made,  and  the  meats  properly  kept,  dressed,  and 
served,  is  the  one  table  of  a  hundred,  the  fabulous  en 
chanted  island.  It  seems  impossible  to  get  the  idea  into 
the  minds  of  people  that  what  is  called  common  food, 
carefully  prepared,  becomes,  in  virtue  of  that  very  care  and 
attention,  a  delicacy,  superseding  the  necessity  of  artificially 
compounded  dainties. 


COOKERY  159 

To  begin,  then,  with  the  very  foundation  of  a  good  table, 
—  Bread :  What  ought  it  to  be  ?  It  should  be  light, 
sweet,  and  tender. 

This  matter  of  lightness  is  the  distinctive  line  between 
savage  and  civilized  bread.  The  savage  mixes  simple  flour 
and  water  into  balls  of  paste,  which  he  throws  into  boiling 
water,  and  which  come  out  solid,  glutinous  masses,  of  which 
his  common  saying  is,  "  Man  eat  dis,  he  no  die,"  -  —  which  a 
facetious  traveler  who  was  obliged  to  subsist  on  it  inter 
preted  to  mean,  "  Dis  no  kill  you,  nothing  will."  In  short, 
it  requires  the  stomach  of  a  wild  animal  or  of  a  savage  to 
digest  this  primitive  form  of  bread,  and  of  course  more  or 
less  attention  in  all  civilized  modes  of  bread  making  is  given 
to  producing  lightness.  By  lightness  is  meant  simply  that 
the  particles  are  to  be  separated  from  each  other  by  little 
holes  or  air-cells ;  and  all  the  different  methods  of  making 
light  bread  are  neither  more  nor  less  than  the  formation  in 
bread  of  these  air-cells. 

So  far  as  we  know,  there  are  four  practicable  methods 
of  aerating  bread,  namely,  by  fermentation ;  by  efferves 
cence  of  an  acid  and  an  alkali ;  by  aerated  egg,  or  egg 
which  has  been  filled  with  air  by  the  process  of  beating ; 
and,  lastly,  by  pressure  of  some  gaseous  substance  into  the 
paste,  by  a  process  much  resembling  the  impregnation  of 
water  in  a -soda  fountain.  All  these  have  one  and  the  same 
object,  —  to  give  us  the  cooked  particles  of  our  flour  sepa 
rated  by  such  permanent  air-cells  as  will  enable  the  stomach 
more  readily  to  digest  them. 

A  very  common  mode  of  aerating  bread  in  America  is 
by  the  effervescence  of  an  acid  and  an  alkali  in  the  flour. 
The  carbonic  acid  gas  thus  formed  produces  minute  air-cells 
in  the  bread,  or,  as  the  cook  says,  makes  it  light.  When 
this  process  is  performed  with  exact  attention  to  chemical 
laws,  so  that  the  acid  and  alkali  completely  neutralize  each 
other,  leaving  no  overplus  of  either,  the  result  is  often  very 


160  HOUSE  AND  HOME  PAPERS 

palatable.  The  difficulty  is,  that  this  is  a  happy  conjunc 
tion  of  circumstances  which  seldom  occurs.  The  acid  most 
commonly  employed  is  that  of  sour  milk,  and,  as  milk  has 
many  degrees  of  sourness,  the  rule  of  a  certain  quantity  of 
alkali  to  the  pint  must  necessarily  produce  very  different 
results  at  different  times.  As  an  actual  fact,  where  this 
mode  of  making  bread  prevails,  as  we  lament  to  say  it  does 
to  a  great  extent  in  this  country,  one  finds  five  cases  of 
failure  to  one  of  success.  It  is  a  woful  thing  that  the 
daughters  of  New  England  have  abandoned  the  old  re 
spectable  mode  of  yeast  brewing  and  bread  raising  for  this 
specious  substitute,  so  easily  made,  and  so  seldom  well 
made.  The  green,  clammy,  acrid  substance  called  biscuit, 
which  many  of  our  worthy  republicans  are  obliged  to  eat  in 
these  days,  is  wholly  unworthy  of  the  men  and  women  of 
the  Republic.  Good  patriots  ought  not  to  be  put  off  in 
that  way,  —  they  deserve  better  fare. 

As  an  occasional  variety,  as  a  household  convenience  for 
obtaining  bread  or  biscuit  at  a  moment's  notice,  the  process 
of  effervescence  may  be  retained  ;  but  we  earnestly  entreat 
American  housekeepers,  in  Scriptural  language,  to  stand  in 
the  way  and  ask  for  the  old  paths,  and  return  to  the  good 
yeast-bread  of  their  sainted  grandmothers. 

If  acid  and  alkali  must  be  used,  by  all  means  let  them 
be  mixed  in  due  proportions.  No  cook  should  be  left  to 
guess  and  judge  for  herself  about  this  matter.  There  is  an 
article,  called  "  Preston's  Infallible  Yeast  Powder,"  which 
is  made  by  chemical  rule,  and  produces  very  perfect  results. 
The  use  of  this  obviates  the  worst  dangers  in  making  bread 
by  effervescence. 

Of  all  processes  of  aeration  in  bread-making,  the  oldest 
and  most  time-honored  is  by  fermentation.  That  this  was 
known  in  the  days  of  our  Saviour  is  evident  from  the  forci 
ble  simile  in  which  he  compares  the  silent  permeating  force 
of  truth  in  human  society  to  the  very  familiar  household 
process  of  raising  bread  by  a  little  yeast. 


COOKEKY  161 

There  is,  however,  one  species  of  yeast,  much  used  in 
some  parts  of  the  country,  against  which  I  have  to  enter 
my  protest.  It  is  called  salt-risings,  or  milk-risings,  and  is 
made  by  mixing  flour,  milk,  and  a  little  salt  together  and 
leaving  them  to  ferment.  The  bread  thus  produced  is  often 
very  attractive,  when  new  and  made  with  great  care.  It  is 
white  and  delicate,  with  fine,  even  air-cells.  It  has,  how 
ever,  when  kept,  some  characteristics  which  remind  us  of 
the  terms  in  which  our  old  English  Bible  describes  the 
effect  of  keeping  the  manna  of  the  ancient  Israelites,  which 
we  are  informed,  in  words  more  explicit  than  agreeable, 
"  stank,  and  bred  worms."  If  salt-rising  bread  does  not 
fulfill  the  whole  of  this  unpleasant  description,  it  certainly 
does  emphatically  a  part  of  it.  The  smell  which  it  has  in 
baking,  and  when  more  than  a  day  old,  suggests  the  in 
quiry  whether  it  is  the  saccharine  or  the  putrid  fermenta 
tion  with  which  it  is  raised.  Whoever  breaks  a  piece  of  it 
after  a  day  or  two  will  often  see  minute  filaments  or  clammy 
strings  drawing  out  from  the  fragments,  which,  with  the 
unmistakable  smell,  will  cause  him  to  pause  before  consum 
mating  a  nearer  acquaintance. 

The  fermentation  of  flour  by  means  of  brewer's  or  dis 
tiller's  yeast  produces,  if  rightly  managed,  results  far  more 
palatable  and  wholesome.  The  only  requisites  for  success 
in  it  are,  first,  good  materials,  and,  second,  great  care  in  a 
few  small  things.  There  are  certain  low-priced  or  damaged 
kinds  of  flour  which  can  never  by  any  kind  of  domestic 
chemistry  be  made  into  good  bread  ;  and  to  those  persons 
whose  stomachs  forbid  them  to  eat  gummy,  glutinous  paste, 
under  the  name  of  bread,  there  is  no  economy  in  buying 
these  poor  brands,  even  at  half  the  price  of  good  flour. 

But  good  flour  and  good  yeast  being  supposed,  with  a 
temperature  favorable  to  the  development  of  fermentation, 
the  whole  success  of  the  process  depends  on  the  thorough 
diffusion  of  the  proper  proportion  of  yeast  through  the 


162  HOUSE   AND   HOME    PAPERS 

whole  mass,  and  on  stopping  the  subsequent  fermentation 
at  the  precise  and  fortunate  point.  The  true  housewife 
makes  her  bread  the  sovereign  of  her  kitchen,  —  its  behests 
must  be  attended  to  in  all  critical  points  and  moments,  no 
matter  what  else  be  postponed.  She  who  attends  to  her 
bread  when  she  has  done  this,  and  arranged  that,  and  per 
formed  the  other,  very  often  finds  that  the  forces  of  nature 
will  not  wait  for  her.  The  snowy  mass,  perfectly  mixed, 
kneaded  with  care  and  strength,  rises  in  its  beautiful  per 
fection  till  the  moment  comes  for  fixing  the  air-cells  by 
baking.  A  few  minutes  now,  and  the  acetous  fermentation 
will  begin,  and  the  whole  result  be  spoiled.  Many  bread- 
makers  pass  in  utter  carelessness  over  this  sacred  and  mys 
terious  boundary.  Their  oven  has  cake  in  it,  or  they  are 
skimming  jelly,  or  attending  to  some  other  of  the  so-called 
higher  branches  of  cookery,  while  the  bread  is  quickly 
passing  into  the  acetous  stage.  At  last,  when  they  are 
ready  to  attend  to  it,  they  find  that  it  has  been  going  its 
own  way,  —  it  is  so  sour  that  the  pungent  smell  is  plainly 
perceptible.  Now  the  saleratus-bottle  is  handed  down,  and 
a  quantity  of  the  dissolved  alkali  mixed  with  the  paste,  — 
an  expedient  sometimes  making  itself  too  manifest  by 
greenish  streaks  or  small  acrid  spots  in  the  bread.  As  the 
result,  we  have  a  beautiful  article  spoiled,  —  bread  without 
sweetness,  if  not  absolutely  sour. 

In  the  view  of  many,  lightness  is  the  only  property 
required  in  this  article.  The  delicate,  refined  sweetness 
which  exists  in  carefully  kneaded  bread,  baked  just  before 
it  passes  to  the  extreme  point  of  fermentation,  is  something 
of  which  they  have  no  conception ;  and  thus  they  will  even 
regard  this  process  of  spoiling  the  paste  by  the  acetous  fer 
mentation,  and  then  rectifying  that  acid  by  effervescence 
with  an  alkali,  as  something  positively  meritorious.  How 
else  can  they  value  and  relish  baker's  loaves,  such  as  some 
are,  drugged  with  ammonia  and  other  disagreeable  things, 


COOKERY  163 

light  indeed,  so  light  that  they  seem  to  have  neither  weight 
nor  substance,  but  with  no  more  sweetness  or  taste  than  so 
much  white  cotton  ? 

Some  persons  prepare  bread  for  the  oven  by  simply  mix 
ing  it  in  the  mass,  without  kneading,  pouring  it  into  pans, 
and  suffering  it  to  rise  there.  The  air-cells  in  bread  thus 
prepared  are  coarse  and  uneven  ;  the  bread  is  as  inferior  in 
delicacy  and  nicety  to  that  which  is  well  kneaded  as  a  raw 
Irish  servant  to  a  perfectly  educated  and  refined  lady.  The 
process  of  kneading  seems  to  impart  an  evenness  to  the 
minute  air-cells,  a  fineness  of  texture,  and  a  tenderness  and 
pliability  to  the  whole  substance,  that  can  be  gained  in  no 
other  way. 

The  divine  principle  of  beauty  has  its  reign  over  bread  as 
well  as  over  all  other  things  ;  it  has  its  laws  of  aesthetics ; 
and  that  bread  which  is  so  prepared  that  it  can  be  formed 
into  separate  and  well-proportioned  loaves,  each  one  carefully 
worked  and  moulded,  will  develop  the  most  beautiful  re 
sults.  After  being  moulded,  the  loaves  should  stand  a  little 
while,  just  long  enough  to  allow  the  fermentation  going  on 
in  them  to  expand  each  little  air-cell  to  the  point  at  which 
it  stood  before  it  was  worked  down,  and  then  they  should 
be  immediately  put  into  the  oven. 

Many  a  good  thing,  however,  is  spoiled  in  the  oven.  We 
cannot  but  regret,  for  the  sake  of  bread,  that  our  old  steady 
brick  ovens  have  been  almost  universally  superseded  by  those 
of  ranges  and  cooking-stoves,  which  are  infinite  in  their 
caprices,  and  forbid  all  general  rules.  One  thing,  however, 
may  be  borne  in  mind  as  a  principle,  —  that  the  excellence 
of  bread  in  all  its  varieties,  plain  or  sweetened,  depends  on 
the  perfection  of  its  air-cells,  whether  produced  by  yeast, 
egg,  or  effervescence  ;  that  one  of  the  objects  of  baking  is  to 
fix  these  air-cells,  and  that  the  quicker  this  can  be  done 
through  the  whole  mass,  the  better  will  the  result  be. 
When  cake  or  bread  is  made  heavy  by  baking  too  quickly, 


164  HOUSE    AND   HOME  "PAPERS 

it  is  because  the  immediate  formation  of  the  top  crust  hin 
ders  the  exhaling  of  the  moisture  in  the  centre,  and  prevents 
the  air-cells  from  cooking.  The  weight  also  of  the  crust 
pressing  down  on  the  doughy  air-cells  below  destroys  them, 
producing  that  horror  of  good  cooks,  a  heavy  streak.  The 
problem  in  baking,  then,  is  the  quick  application  of  heat 
rather  below  than  above  the  loaf,  and  its  steady  continu 
ance  till  all  the  air-cells  are  thoroughly  dried  into  permanent 
consistency.  Every  housewife  must  watch  her  own  oven  to 
know  how  this  can  be  best  accomplished. 

Bread-making  can  be  cultivated  to  any  extent  as  a  fine 
art ;  and  the  various  kinds  of  biscuit,  tea-rusks,  twists,  rolls, 
into  which  bread  may  be  made,  are  much  better  worth  a 
housekeeper's  ambition  than  the  getting  up  of  rich  and  ex 
pensive  cake  or  confections.  There  are  also  varieties  of 
material  which  are  rich  in  good  effects.  Unbolted  flour, 
altogether  more  wholesome  than  the  fine  wheat,  and  when 
properly  prepared  more  palatable,  rye-flour  and  corn-meal, 
each  affording  a  thousand  attractive  possibilities,  —  each  and 
all  of  these  come  under  the  general  laws  of  breadstuffs,  and 
are  worth  a  careful  attention. 

A  peculiarity  of  our  American  table,  particularly  in  the 
Southern  and  Western  States,  is  the  constant  exhibition  of 
various  preparations  of  hot  bread.  In  many  families  of  the 
South  and  West,  bread  in  loaves  to  be  eaten  cold  is  an  arti 
cle  quite  unknown.  The  effect  of  this  kind  of  diet  upon 
the  health  has  formed  a  frequent  subject  of  remark  among 
travelers  ;  but  only  those  know  the  full  mischiefs  of  it  who 
have  been  compelled  to  sojourn  for  a  length  of  time  in 
families  where  it  is  maintained.  The  unknown  horrors  of 
dyspepsia  from  bad  bread  are  a  topic  over  which  we  will 
ingly  draw  a  veil. 

Next  to  bread  comes  butter,  —  on  which  we  have  to  say 
that,  when  we  remember  what  butter  is  in  civilized  Europe, 


COOKERY  165 

and  compare  it  with  what  it  is  in  America,  we  wonder  at 
the  forbearance  and  lenity  of  travelers  in  their  strictures  on 
our  national  commissariat. 

Butter  in  England,  France,  and  Italy  is  simply  solidified 
cream,  with  all  the  sweetness  of  the  cream  in  its  taste, 
freshly  churned  each  day,  and  unadulterated  by  salt.  At 
the  present  moment,  when  salt  is  five  cents  a  pound  and 
butter  fifty,  we  Americans  are  paying,  I  should  judge  from 
the  taste,  for  about  one  pound  of  salt  to  every  ten  of  butter, 
and  those  of  us  who  have  eaten  the  butter  of  Prance  and 
England  do  this  with  rueful  recollections. 

There  is,  it  is  true,  an  article  of  butter  made  in  the  Ameri 
can  style  with  salt,  which,  in  its  own  kind  and  way,  has  a 
merit  not  inferior  to  that  of  England  and  France.  Many 
prefer  it,  and  it  certainly  takes  a  rank  equally  respectable 
with  the  other.  It  is  yellow,  hard,  and  worked  so  perfectly 
free  from  every  particle  of  buttermilk  that  it  might  make 
the  voyage  of  the  world  without  spoiling.  It  is  salted,  but 
salted  with  care  and  delicacy,  so  that  it  may  be  a  question 
whether  even  a  fastidious  Englishman  might  not  prefer  its 
golden  solidity  to  the  white,  creamy  freshness  of  his  own. 
Now  I  am  not  for  universal  imitation  of  foreign  customs,  and 
where  I  find  this  butter  made  perfectly  I  call  it  our  Amer 
ican  style,  and  am  not  ashamed  of  it.  I  only  regret  that 
this  article  is  the  exception,  and  not  the  rule,  on  our  tables. 
When  I  reflect  on  the  possibilities  which  beset  the  delicate 
stomach  in  this  line,  I  do  not  wonder  that  my  venerated 
friend  Dr.  Mussey  used  to  close  his  counsels  to  invalids  with 
the  direction,  "And  don't  eat  grease  on  your  bread." 

America  must,  I  think,  have  the  credit  of  manufacturing 
and  putting  into  market  more  bad  butter  than  all  that  is 
made  in  all  the  rest  of  the  world  together.  The  varieties  of 
bad  tastes  and  smells  which  prevail  in  it  are  quite  a  study. 
This  has  a  cheesy  taste,  that  a  mouldy,  —  this  is  flavored 
with  cabbage,  and  that  again  with  turnip ;  and  another  has 


166  HOUSE  AND  HOME  PAPERS 

the  strong,  sharp  savor  of  rancid  animal  fat.  These  varie 
ties,  I  presume,  come  from  the  practice  of  churning  only  at 
long  intervals,  and  keeping  the  cream  meanwhile  in  unven- 
tilated  cellars  or  dairies,  the  air  of  which  is  loaded  with  the 
effluvia  of  vegetable  substances.  No  domestic  articles  are 
so  sympathetic  as  those  of  the  milk  tribe  :  they  readily  take 
on  the  smell  and  taste  of  any  neighboring  substance,  and 
hence  the  infinite  variety  of  flavors  on  which  one  mournfully 
muses  who  has  late  in  autumn  to  taste  twenty  firkins  of 
butter  in  hopes  of  finding  one  which  will  simply  not  be  in 
tolerable  on  his  winter  table. 

A  matter  for  despair  as  regards  bad  butter  is  that,  at  the 
tables  where  it  is  used,  it  stands  sentinel  at  the  door  to  bar 
your  way  to  every  other  kind  of  food.  You  turn  from  your 
dreadful  half-slice  of  bread,  which  fills  your  mouth  with 
bitterness,  to  your  beefsteak,  which  proves  virulent  with 
the  same  poison  ;  you  think  to  take  refuge  in  vegetable 
diet,  and  find  the  butter  in  the  string-beans,  and  pollut 
ing  the  innocence  of  early  peas  ;  it  is  in  the  corn,  in  the 
succotash,  in  the  squash;  the  beets  swim  in  it,  the  onions 
have  it  poured  over  them.  Hungry  and  miserable,  you 
think  to  solace  yourself  at  the  dessert ;  but  the  pastry  is 
cursed,  the  cake  is  acrid  with  the  same  plague.  You  are 
ready  to  howl  with  despair,  and  your  misery  is  great  upon 
you,  especially  if  this  is  a  table  wrhere  you  have  taken 
board  for  three  months  with  your  delicate  wife  and  four 
small  children.  Your  case  is  dreadful,  —  and  it  is  hopeless, 
because  long  usage  and  habit  have  rendered  your  host  per 
fectly  incapable  of  discovering  what  is  the  matter.  "  Don't 
like  the  butter,  sir  ?  I  assure  you  I  paid  an  extra  price 
for  it,  and  it 's  the  very  best  in  the  market.  I  looked  over 
as  many  as  a  hundred  tubs,  and  picked  out  this  one."  You 
are  dumb,  but  not  less  despairing. 

Yet  the  process  of  making  good  butter  is  a  very  simple 
one.  To  keep  the  cream  in  a  perfectly  pure,  cool  atmos- 


COOKERY  167 

phere,  to  churn  while  it  is  yet  sweet,  to  work  out  the  butter 
milk  thoroughly,  and  to  add  salt  with  such  discretion  as  not 
to  ruin  the  fine,  delicate  flavor  of  the  fresh  cream,  —  all  this 
is  quite  simple,  so  simple  that  one  wonders  at  thousands 
and  millions  of  pounds  of  butter  yearly  manufactured  which 
are  merely  a  hobgoblin-bewitchment  of  cream  into  foul  and 
loathsome  poisons. 

The  third  head  of  my  discourse  is  that  of  Meat,  of  which 
America  furnishes,  in  the  gross  material,  enough  to  spread 
our  tables  royally,  were  it  well  cared  for  and  served. 

The  faults  in  the  meat  generally  furnished  to  us  are,  first, 
that  it  is  too  new.  A  beefsteak,  which  three  or  four  days 
of  keeping  might  render  practicable,  is  served  up  to  us  pal 
pitating  with  freshness,  with  all  the  toughness  of  animal 
muscle  yet  warm.  In  the  Western  country,  the  traveler, 
on  approaching  an  hotel,  is  often  saluted  by  the  last  shrieks 
of  the  chickens  which  half  an  hour  afterward  are  presented 
to  him  li  la  spread-eagle  for  his  dinner.  The  example  of 
the  Father  of  the  Faithful,  most  wholesome  to  be  followed 
in  so  many  respects,  is  imitated  only  in  the  celerity  with 
which  the  young  calf,  tender  and  good,  was  transformed  into 
an  edible  dish  for  hospitable  purposes.  But  what  might  be 
good  housekeeping  in  a  nomadic  Emir,  in  days  when  re 
frigerators  were  yet  in  the  future,  ought  not  to  be  so  closely 
imitated  as  it  often  is  in  our  own  land. 

In  the  next  place,  there  is  a  woful  lack  of  nicety  in  the 
butcher's  work  of  cutting  and  preparing  meat.  Who  that 
remembers  the  neatly  trimmed  mutton-chop  of  an  English 
inn,  or  the  artistic  little  circle  of  lamb-chop  fried  in  bread 
crumbs  coiled  around  a  tempting  centre  of  spinach  which 
can  always  be  found  in  France,  can  recognize  any  family 
resemblance  to  these  dapper  civilized  preparations  in  those 
coarse,  roughly  hacked  strips  of  bone,  gristle,  and  meat 
which  are  commonly  called  mutton-chop  in  America  ?  There 


168          HOUSE  AND  HOME  PAPERS 

seems  to  be  a  large  dish  of  something  resembling  meat,  in 
which  each  fragment  has  about  two  or  three  edible  morsels, 
the  rest  being  composed  of  dry  and  burnt  skin,  fat,  and 
ragged  bone. 

Is  it  not  time  that  civilization  should  learn  to  demand 
somewhat  more  care  and  nicety  in  the  modes  of  preparing 
what  is  to  be  cooked  and  eaten  ?  Might  not  some  of  the 
refinement  and  trimness  which  characterize  the  preparations 
of  the  European  market  be  with  advantage  introduced  into 
our  own  ?  The  housekeeper  who  wishes  to  garnish  her 
table  with  some  of  those  nice  things  is  stopped  in  the  out 
set  by  the  butcher.  Except  in  our  large  cities,  where  some 
foreign  travel  may  have  created  the  demand,  it  seems  im 
possible  to  get  much  in  this  line  that  is  properly  prepared. 

I  am  aware  that,  if  this  is  urged  on  the  score  of  aesthetics, 
the  ready  reply  will  be,  "  Oh,  we  can't  give  time  here  in 
America  to  go  into  niceties  and  French  whim -whams  !  " 
But  the  French  mode  of  doing  almost  all  practical  things  is 
based  on  that  true  philosophy  and  utilitarian  good  sense 
which  characterize  that  seemingly  thoughtless  people.  No 
where  is  economy  a  more  careful  study,  and  their  market  is 
artistically  arranged  to  this  end.  The  rule  is  so  to  cut  their 
meats  that  no  portion  designed  to  be  cooked  in  a  certain  man 
ner  shall  have  wasteful  appendages  which  that  mode  of  cook 
ing  will  spoil.  The  French  soup  kettle  stands  ever  ready 
to  receive  the  bones,  the  thin  fibrous  flaps,  the  sinewy  and 
gristly  portions,  which  are  so  often  included  in  our  roasts 
or  broilings,  which  fill  our  plates  with  unsightly  debris,  and 
finally  make  an  amount  of  blank  waste  for  which  we  pay  our 
butcher  the  same  price  that  we  pay  for  what  we  have  eaten. 

The  dead  waste  of  our  clumsy,  coarse  way  of  cutting 
meats  is  immense.  For  example,  at  the  beginning  of  the 
present  season,  the  part  of  a  lamb  denominated  leg  and  loin, 
or  hind-quarter,  sold  for  thirty  cents  a  pound.  Now  this 
includes,  besides  the  thick,  fleshy  portions,  a  quantity  of 


COOKERY  169 

bone,  sinew,  and  thin  fibrous  substance,  constituting  full 
one  third  of  the  whole  weight.  If  we  put  it  into  the  oven 
entire,  in  the  usual  manner,  we  have  the  thin  parts  over 
done,  and  the  skinny  and  fibrous  parts  utterly  dried  up,  by 
the  application  of  the  amount  of  heat  necessary  to  cook  the 
thick  portion.  Supposing  the  joint  to  weigh  six  pounds, 
at  thirty  cents,  and  that  one  third  of  the  weight  is  so  treated 
as  to  become  perfectly  useless,  we  throw  away  sixty  cents. 
Of  a  piece  of  beef  at  twenty-five  cents  a  pound,  fifty  cents' 
worth  is  often  lost  in  bone,  fat,  and  burnt  skin. 

The  fact  is,  this  way  of  selling  and  cooking  meat  in  large, 
gross  portions  is  of  English  origin,  and  belongs  to  a  country 
where  all  the  customs  of  society  spring  from  a  class  who 
have  no  particular  occasion  for  economy.  The  practice  of 
minute  and  delicate  division  comes  from  a  nation  which 
acknowledges  the  need  of  economy,  and  has  made  it  a  study. 
A  quarter  of  lamb  in  this  mode  of  division  would  be  sold 
in  three  nicely  prepared  portions.  The  thick  part  would 
be  sold  by  itself,  for  a  neat,  compact  little  roast ;  the  rib- 
bones  would  be  artistically  separated,  and  all  the  edible 
matters  scraped  away  would  form  those  delicate  dishes  of 
lamb-chop  which,  fried  in  bread-crumbs  to  a  golden  brown, 
are  so  ornamental  and  so  palatable  a  side-dish  ;  the  trim 
mings  which  remain  after  this  division  would  be  destined  to 
the  soup  kettle  or  stew  pan.  In  a  French  market  is  a  little 
portion  for  every  purse,  and  the  far-famed  and  delicately 
flavored  soups  and  stews  which  have  arisen  out  of  French 
economy  are  a  study  worth  a  housekeeper's  attention.  Not 
one  atom  of  food  is  wasted  in  the  French  modes  of  prepara 
tion  5  even  tough  animal  cartilages  and  sinews,  instead  of 
appearing  burnt  and  blackened  in  company  with  the  roast 
meat  to  which  they  happen  to  be  related,  are  treated  accord 
ing  to  their  own  laws,  and  come  out  either  in  savory  soups, 
or  those  fine,  clear  meat-jellies  which  form  a  garnish  no  less 
agreeable  to  the  eye  than  palatable  to  the  taste. 


170  HOUSE  AND  HOME  PAPERS 

Whether  this  careful,  economical,  practical  style  of  meat 
cooking  can  ever  to  any  great  extent  be  introduced  into  our 
kitchens  now  is  a  question.  Our  butchers  are  against  it ; 
our  servants  are  wedded  to  the  old  wholesale  wasteful  ways, 
which  seem  to  them  easier  because  they  are  accustomed  to 
them.  A  cook  who  will  keep  and  properly  tend  a  soup 
kettle  which  shall  receive  and  utilize  all  that  the  coarse 
preparations  of  the  butcher  would  require  her  to  trim  away, 
who  understands  the  art  of  making  the  most  of  all  these 
remains,  is  a  treasure  scarcely  to  be  hoped  for.  If  such 
things  are  to  be  done,  it  must  be  primarily  through  the 
educated  brain  of  cultivated  women  who  do  not  scorn  to 
turn  their  culture  and  refinement  upon  domestic  problems. 

When  meats  have  been  properly  divided  —  so  that  each 
portion  can  receive  its  own  appropriate  style  of  treatment 
—  next  comes  the  consideration  of  the  modes  of  cooking. 
These  may  be  divided  into  two  great  general  classes :  those 
where  it  is  desired  to  keep  the  juices  within  the  meat,  as 
in  baking,  broiling,  and  frying ;  and  those  whose  object  is 
to  extract  the  juice  and  dissolve  the  fibre,  as  in  the  mak 
ing  of  soups  and  stews.  In  the  first  class  of  operations,  the 
process  must  be  as  rapid  as  may  consist  with  the  thorough 
cooking  of  all  the  particles.  In  this  branch  of  cookery, 
doing  quickly  is  doing  well.  The  fire  must  be  brisk,  the 
attention  alert.  The  introduction  of  cooking-stoves  offers 
to  careless  domestics  facilities  for  gradually  drying  up  meats, 
and  despoiling  them  of  all  flavor  and  nutriment,  —  facilities 
which  appear  to  be  very  generally  laid  hold  of.  They  have 
almost  banished  the  genuine,  old-fashioned  roast  meat  from 
our  tables,  and  left  in  its  stead  dried  meats  with  their  most 
precious  and  nutritive  juices  evaporated.  How  few  cooks, 
unassisted,  are  competent  to  the  simple  process  of  broiling 
a  beefsteak  or  mutton-chop  !  how  very  generally  one  has 
to  choose  between  these  meats  gradually  dried  away,  or 
burned  on  the  outside  and  raw  within !  Yet  in  England 


COOKERY  171 

these  articles  never  come  on  table  done  amiss  ;  their  perfect 
cooking  is  as  absolute  a  certainty  as  the  rising  of  the  sun. 

No  one  of  these  rapid  processes  of  cooking,  however,  is 
so  generally  abused  as  frying.  The  frying-pan  has  awful 
sins  to  answer  for.  What  untold  horrors  of  dyspepsia  have 
arisen  from  its  smoky  depths,  like  the  ghosts  from  witches' 
caldrons  !  The  fizzle  of  frying  meat  is  as  a  warning  knell 
on  many  an  ear,  saying,  "  Touch  not,  taste  not,  if  you  would 
not  burn  and  writhe  !  " 

Yet  those  who  have  traveled  abroad  remember  that  some 
of  the  lightest,  most  palatable,  and  most  digestible  prepara 
tions  of  meat  have  come  from  this  dangerous  source.  But 
we  fancy  quite  other  rites  and  ceremonies  inaugurated  the 
process,  and  quite  other  hands  performed  its  offices,  than 
those  known  to  our  kitchens.  Probably  the  delicate  cote- 
lettes  of  France  are  not  flopped  down  into  half-melted  grease, 
there  gradually  to  warm  and  soak  and  fizzle,  while  Biddy 
goes  in  and  out  on  her  other  ministrations,  till  finally,  when 
thoroughly  saturated  and  dinner-hour  impends,  she  bethinks 
herself,  and  crowds  the  fire  below  to  a  roaring  heat,  and 
finishes  the  process  by  a  smart  burn,  involving  the  kitchen 
and  surrounding  precincts  in  volumes  of  Stygian  gloom. 

From  such  preparations  has  arisen  the  very  current  med 
ical  opinion  that  fried  meats  are  indigestible.  They  are  in 
digestible  if  they  are  greasy  ;  but  French  cooks  have  taught 
us  that  a  thing  has  no  more  need  to  be  greasy  because  emerg 
ing  from  grease  than  Venus  had  to  be  salt  because  she  rose 
from  the  sea. 

There  are  two  ways  of  frying  employed  by  the  French 
cook.  One  is,  to  immerse  the  article  to  be  cooked  in  loll 
ing  fat,  with  an  emphasis  on  the  present  participle,  —  and 
the  philosophical  principle  is,  so  immediately  to  crisp  every 
pore  at  the  first  moment  or  two  of  immersion  as  effectually  to 
seal  the  interior  against  the  intrusion  of  greasy  particles  ;  it 
can  then  remain  as  long  as  may  be  necessary  thoroughly  to 


172          HOUSE  AND  HOME  PAPERS 

cook  it,  without  imbibing  any  more  of  the  boiling  fluid  than 
if  it  were  enclosed  in  an  eggshell.  The  other  method  is,  to 
rub  a  perfectly  smooth  iron  surface  with  just  enough  of  some 
oily  substance  to  prevent  the  meat  from  adhering,  and  cook 
it  with  a  quick  heat,  as  cakes  are  baked  on  a  griddle.  In 
both  these  cases  there  must  be  the  most  rapid  application  of 
heat  that  can  be  made  without  burning,  and  by  the  adroit 
ness  shown  in  working  out  this  problem  the  skill  of  the 
cook  is  tested.  Any  one  whose  cook  attains  this  important 
secret  will  find  fried  things  quite  as  digestible  and  often 
more  palatable  than  any  other. 

In  the  second  department  of  meat  cookery,  to  wit,  the 
slow  and  gradual  application  of  heat  for  the  softening  and 
dissolution  of  its  fibre  and  the  extraction  of  its  juices,  com 
mon  cooks  are  equally  untrained.  Where  is  the  so-called 
cook  who  understands  how  to  prepare  soups  and  stews  ? 
These  are  precisely  the  articles  in  which  a  French  kitchen 
excels.  The  soup  kettle,  made  with  a  double  bottom  to 
prevent  burning,  is  a  permanent,  ever-present  institution, 
and  the  coarsest  and  most  impracticable  meats  distilled 
through  that  alembic  come  out  again  in  soups,  jellies,  or  sa 
vory  stews.  The  toughest  cartilage,  even  the  bones,  being 
first  cracked,  are  here  made  to  give  forth  their  hidden 
virtues,  and  to  rise  in  delicate  and  appetizing  forms.  One 
great  law  governs  all  these  preparations  :  the  application  of 
heat  must  be  gradual,  steady,  long  protracted,  never  reach 
ing  the  point  of  active  boiling.  Hours  of  quiet  simmering 
dissolve  all  dissoluble  parts,  soften  the  sternest  fibre,  and 
unlock  every  minute  cell  in  which  Nature  has  stored  away 
her  treasures  of  nourishment.  This  careful  and  protracted 
application  of  heat  and  the  skillful  use  of  flavors  constitute 
the  two  main  points  in  all  those  nice  preparations  of  meat 
for  which  the  French  have  so  many  names,  —  processes  by 
which  a  delicacy  can  be  imparted  to  the  coarsest  and  cheap 
est  food  superior  to  that  of  the  finest  articles  under  less 
philosophic  treatment. 


COOKERY  173 

French  soups  and  stews  are  a  study,  and  they  would 
not  be  an  unprofitable  one  to  any  person  who  wishes  to  live 
with  comfort  and  even  elegance  on  small  means. 

John  Bull  looks  down  from  the  sublime  of  ten  thousand 
a  year  on  French  kickshaws,  as  he  calls  them :  "  Give  me 
my  meat  cooked  so  I  may  know  what  it  is  !  "  An  ox 
roasted  whole  is  dear  to  John's  soul,  and  his  kitchen  arrange 
ments  are  Titanic.  What  magnificent  rounds  and  sirloins 
of  beef,  revolving  on  self-regulating  spits,  with  a  rich  click 
of  satisfaction,  before  grates  piled  with  roaring  fires !  Let 
us  do  justice  to  the  royal  cheer.  Nowhere  are  the  charms 
of  pure,  unadulterated  animal  food  set  forth  in  more  impos 
ing  style.  For  John  is  rich,  and  what  does  he  care  for  odds 
and  ends  and  parings  ?  Has  he  not  all  the  beasts  of  the 
forest,  and  the  cattle  on  a  thousand  hills  ?  What  does  he 
want  of  economy  ?  But  his  brother  Jean  has  not  ten  thou 
sand  pounds  a  year,  —  nothing  like  it ;  but  he  makes  up  for 
the  slenderness  of  his  purse  by  boundless  fertility  of  inven 
tion  and  delicacy  of  practice.  John  began  sneering  at  Jean's 
soups  and  ragouts,  but  all  John's  modern  sons  and  daughters 
send  to  Jean  for  their  cooks,  and  the  sirloins  of  England 
rise  up  and  do  obeisance  to  this  Joseph  with  a  white  apron 
who  comes  to  rule  in  their  kitchens. 

There  is  no  animal  fibre  that  will  not  yield  itself  up  to 
long-continued,  steady  heat.  But  the  difficulty  with  almost 
any  of  the  common  servants  who  call  themselves  cooks  is, 
that  they  have  not  the  smallest  notion  of  the  philosophy  of 
the  application  of  heat.  Such  a  one  will  complacently  tell 
you,  concerning  certain  meats,  that  the  harder  you  boil  them 
the  harder  they  grow,  —  an  obvious  fact,  which,  under  her 
mode  of  treatment  by  an  indiscriminate  galloping  boil,  has 
frequently  come  under  her  personal  observation.  If  you 
tell  her  that  such  meat  must  stand  for  six  hours  in  a  heat 
just  below  the  boiling-point,  she  will  probably  answer,  "  Yes, 
ma'am,"  and  go  on  her  own  way.  Or  she  will  let  it  stand 


174  HOUSE  AND  HOME  PAPERS 

till  it  burns  to  the  bottom  of  the  kettle,  —  a  most  common 
termination  of  the  experiment.  The  only  way  to  make  sure 
of  the  matter  is  either  to  import  a  French  kettle,  or  to  fit 
into  an  ordinary  kettle  a  false  bottom,  such  as  any  tinman 
may  make,  that  shall  leave  a  space  of  an  inch  or  two  be 
tween  the  meat  and  the  fire.  This  kettle  may  be  main 
tained  as  a  constant  habitue  of  the  range,  and  into  it  the 
cook  may  be  instructed  to  throw  all  the  fibrous  trimmings 
of  meat,  all  the  gristle,  tendons,  and  bones,  having  previ 
ously  broken  up  these  last  with  a  mallet. 

Such  a  kettle  will  furnish  the  basis  for  clear,  rich  soups 
or  other  palatable  dishes.  Clear  soup  consists  of  the  dis 
solved  juices  of  the  meat  and  gelatine  of  the  bones,  cleared 
from  the  fat  and  fibrous  portions  by  straining  when  cold. 
The  grease,  which  rises  to  the  top  of  the  fluid,  may  thus  be 
easily  removed.  In  a  stew,  on  the  contrary,  you  boil  down 
this  soup  till  it  permeates  the  fibre  which  long  exposure  to 
heat  has  softened.  All  that  remains,  after  the  proper  prep 
aration  of  the  fibre  and  juices,  is  the  flavoring,  and  it  is  in 
this,  particularly,  that  French  soups  excel  those  of  America 
and  England  and  all  the  world. 

English  and  American  soups  are  often  heavy  and  hot  with 
spices.  There  are  appreciable  tastes  in  them.  They  burn 
your  mouth  with  cayenne  or  clove  or  allspice.  You  can  tell 
at  once  what  is  in  them,  oftentimes  to  your  sorrow.  But  a 
French  soup  has  a  flavor  which  one  recognizes  at  once  as 
delicious,  yet  not  to  be  characterized  as  due  to  any  single 
condiment ;  it  is  the  just  blending  of  many  things.  The 
same  remark  applies  to  all  their  stews,  ragouts,  and  other 
delicate  preparations.  No  cook  will  ever  study  these  flavors  ; 
but  perhaps  many  cooks'  mistresses  may,  and  thus  be  able 
to  impart  delicacy  and  comfort  to  economy. 

As  to  those  things  called  hashes,  commonly  manufactured 
by  unwatched,  untaught  cooks,  out  of  the  remains  of  yester 
day's  repast,  let  us  not  dwell  too  closely  on  their  memory, 


COOKERY  175 

—  compounds  of  meat,  gristle,  skin,  fat,  and  burnt  fibre, 
with  a  handful  of  pepper  and  salt  flung  at  them,  dredged 
with  lumpy  flour,  watered  from  the  spout  of  the  tea-kettle, 
and  left  to  simmer  at  the  cook's  convenience  while  she  is 
otherwise  occupied.  Such  are  the  best  performances  a  house 
keeper  can  hope  for  from  an  untrained  cook. 

But  the  cunningly  devised  minces,  the  artful  preparations 

choicely  flavored,  which  may  be  made  of  yesterday's  repast, 

-  by  these  is  the  true  domestic  artist  known.     No  cook 

untaught  by  an  educated  brain  ever  makes  these,  and  yet 

economy  is  a  great  gainer  by  them. 

As  regards  the  department  of  Vegetables,  their  number 
and  variety  in  America  are  so  great  that  a  table  might  al 
most  be  furnished  by  these  alone.  Generally  speaking,  their 
cooking  is  a  more  simple  art,  and  therefore  more  likely  to  be 
found  satisfactorily  performed,  than  that  of  meats.  If  only 
they  are  not  drenched  with  rancid  butter,  their  own  native 
excellence  makes  itself  known  in  most  of  the  ordinary  modes 
of  preparation. 

There  is,  however,  one  exception. 

Our  stanch  old  friend  the  potato  is  to  other  vegetables 
what  bread  is  on  the  table.  Like  bread,  it  is  held  as  a  sort 
of  sine  qua  non  ;  like  that,  it  may  be  made  invariably  pal 
atable  by  a  little  care  in  a  few  plain  particulars,  through 
neglect  of  which  it  often  becomes  intolerable.  The  soggy, 
waxy,  indigestible  viand  that  often  appears  in  the  potato- 
dish  is  a  downright  sacrifice  of  the  better  nature  of  this  vege 
table. 

The  potato,  nutritive  and  harmless  as  it  appears,  belongs 
to  a  family  suspected  of  very  dangerous  traits.  It  is  a  fam 
ily  connection  of  the  deadly  nightshade  and  other  ill-reputed 
gentry,  and  sometimes  shows  strange  proclivities  to  evil,  — 
now  breaking  out  uproariously,  as  in  the  noted  potato  rot, 
and  now  more  covertly  in  various  evil  affections.  For  this 


176  HOUSE  AND  HOME  PAPERS 

reason,  scientific  directors  bid  us  beware  of  the  water  in 
which  potatoes  are  boiled,  —  into  which,  it  appears,  the 
evil  principle  is  drawn  off ;  and  they  caution  us  not  to  shred 
them  into  stews  without  previously  suffering  the  slices  to 
lie  for  an  hour  or  so  in  salt  and  water.  These  cautions  are 
worth  attention. 

The  most  usual  modes  of  preparing  the  potato  for  the 
table  are  by  roasting  or  boiling.  These  processes  are  so  sim 
ple  that  it  is  commonly  supposed  every  cook  understands 
them  without  special  directions,  and  yet  there  is  scarcely 
an  uninstructed  cook  who  can  boil  or  roast  a  potato. 

A  good  roasted  potato  is  a  delicacy  worth  a  dozen  compo 
sitions  of  the  cook-book  ;  yet  when  we  ask  for  it,  what 
burnt,  shriveled  abortions  are  presented  to  us  !  Biddy  rushes 
to  her  potato-basket  and  pours  out  two  dozen  of  different 
sizes,  some  having  in  them  three  times  the  amount  of  matter 
of  others.  These  being  washed,  she  tumbles  them  into  her 
oven  at  a  leisure  interval,  and  there  lets  them  lie  till  it  is 
time  to  serve  breakfast,  whenever  that  may  be.  As  a  re 
sult,  if  the  largest  are  cooked,  the  smallest  are  presented  in 
cinders,  and  the  intermediate  sizes  are  \vithered  and  watery. 
Nothing  is  so  utterly  ruined  by  a  few  moments  of  overdoing. 
That  which  at  the  right  moment  was  plump  with  mealy  rich 
ness,  a  quarter  of  an  hour  later  shrivels  and  becomes  watery, 
—  and  it  is  in  this  state  that  roast  potatoes  are  most  fre 
quently  served. 

In  the  same  manner  we  have  seen  boiled  potatoes  from  an 
untaught  cook  coming  upon  the  table  like  lumps  of  yellow 
•wax,  —  and  the  same  article,  the  day  after,  under  the  direc 
tions  of  a  skillful  mistress,  appearing  in  snowy  balls  of  pow 
dery  lightness.  In  the  one  case,  they  were  thrown  in  their 
skins  into  water  and  suffered  to  soak  or  boil,  as  the  case 
might  be,  at  the  cook's  leisure,  and,  after  they  were  boiled, 
to  stand  in  the  water  till  she  was  ready  to  peel  them.  In 
the  other  case,  the  potatoes  being  first  peeled  were  boiled  as 


COOKERY  177 

quickly  as  possible  in  salted  water,  which,  the  moment  they 
were  done,  was  drained  off,  and  then  they  were  gently  shaken 
for  a  minute  or  two  over  the  fire  to  dry  them  still  more 
thoroughly.  We  have  never  yet  seen  the  potato  so  depraved 
and  given  over  to  evil  that  could  not  be  reclaimed  by  this 
mode  of  treatment. 

As  to  fried  potatoes,  who  that  remembers  the  crisp, 
golden  slices  of  the  French  restaurant,  thin  as  wafers  and 
light  as  snowflakes,  does  not  speak  respectfully  of  them  ? 
What  cousinship  with  these  have  those  coarse,  greasy  masses 
of  sliced  potato,  wholly  soggy  and  partly  burnt,  to  which  we 
are  treated  under  the  name  of  fried  potatoes  h  la  America  ? 
In  our  cities  the  restaurants  are  introducing  the  French 
article  to  great  acceptance,  and  to  the  vindication  of  the 
fair  fame  of  this  queen  of  vegetables. 

Finally,  I  arrive  at  the  last  great  head  of  my  subject,  to 
wit,  Tea,  —  meaning  thereby,  as  before  observed,  what  our 
Hibernian  friend  did  in  the  inquiry,  "  Will  y'r  Honor  take 
1  tay  tay  '  or  '  coffee  tay '  ?  " 

I  am  not  about  to  enter  into  the  merits  of  the  great  tea 
and  coffee  controversy,  or  say  whether  these  substances 
are  or  are  not  wholesome.  I  treat  of  them  as  actual  exist 
ences,  and  speak  only  of  the  modes  of  making  the  most  of 
them. 

The  French  coffee  is  reputed  the  best  in  the  world ;  and 
a  thousand  voices  have  asked,  What  is  it  about  the  French 
coffee  ?  In  the  first  place,  then,  the  French  coffee  is  coffee, 
and  not  chicory,  or  rye,  or  beans,  or  peas.  In  the  second 
place,  it  is  freshly  roasted,  whenever  made,  —  roasted  with 
great  care  and  evenness  in  a  little  revolving  cylinder  which 
makes  part  of  the  furniture  of  every  kitchen,  and  which 
keeps  in  the  aroma  of  the  berry.  It  is  never  overdone, 
so  as  to  destroy  the  coffee  flavor,  which  is  in  nine  cases  out 
of  ten  the  fault  of  the  coffee  we  meet  with.  Then  it  is 


178  HOUSE  AND  HOME  TAPERS 

ground,  and  placed  in  a  coffee  pot  with  a  filter,  through 
Avhich  it  percolates  in  clear  drops  —  the  coffee-pot  standing 
on  a  heated  stove  to  maintain  the  temperature.  The  nose 
of  the  coffee-pot  is  stopped  up  to  prevent  the  escape  of  the 
aroma  during  this  process.  The  extract  thus  obtained  is 
a  perfectly  clear,  dark  fluid,  know  as  cafe  noir}  or  black 
coffee.  It  is  black  only  because  of  its  strength,  being  in 
fact  almost  the  very  essential  oil  of  coffee.  A  tablespoonful 
of  this  in  boiled  milk  would  make  what  is  ordinarily  called 
a  strong  cup  of  coffee.  The  boiled  milk  is  prepared  with 
no  less  care.  It  must  be  fresh  and  new,  not  merely  warmed 
or  even  brought  to  the  boiling  point,  but  slowly  simmered 
till  it  attains  a  thick,  creamy  richness.  The  coffee  mixed 
with  this,  and  sweetened  with  that  sparkling  beet-root 
sugar  which  ornaments  a  French  table,  is  the  celebrated 
cnfe-au-laitj  the  name  of  which  has  gone  round  the  world. 

As  we  look  to  France  for  the  best  coffee,  so  we  must 
look  to  England  for  the  perfection  of  tea.  The  teakettle 
is  as  much  an  English  institution  as  aristocracy  or  the 
Prayer  Book  ;  and  when  one  wants  to  know  exactly  how 
tea  should  be  made,  one  has  only  to  ask  how  a  fine  old 
English  housekeeper  makes  it. 

The  first  article  of  her  faith  is,  that  the  water  must  not 
merely  be  hot,  not  merely  have  boiled  a  few  moments  since, 
but  be  actually  boiling  at  the  moment  it  touches  the  tea. 
Hence,  though  servants  in  England  are  vastly  better  trained 
than  with  us,  this  delicate  mystery  is  seldom  left  to  their 
hands.  Tea  making  belongs  to  the  drawing-room,  and  high 
born  ladies  preside  at  "  the  bubbling  and  loud-hissing  urn," 
and  see  that  all  due  rites  and  solemnities  are  properly  per 
formed,  —  that  the  cups  are  hot,  and  that  the  infused  tea 
waits  the  exact  time  before  the  libations  commence.  Oh, 
ye  dear  old  English  tea-tables,  resorts  of  the  kindest-hearted 
hospitality  in  the  world !  we  still  cherish  your  memory, 
even  though  you  do  not  say  pleasant  things  of  us  there. 


COOKERY  179 

One  of  these  days  you  will  think  better  of  us.  Of  late, 
the  introduction  of  English  breakfast  tea  has  raised  a  new 
sect  among  the  tea  drinkers,  reversing  some  of  the  old  can 
ons.  Breakfast  tea  must  be  boiled !  Unlike  the  delicate 
article  of  olden  time,  which  required  only  a  momentary  in 
fusion  to  develop  its  richness,  this  requires  a  longer  and 
severer  treatment  to  bring  out  its  strength,  —  thus  confus 
ing  all  the  established  usages,  and  throwing  the  work  into 
the  hands  of  the  cook  in  the  kitchen. 

The  faults  of  tea,  as  too  commonly  found  at  our  hotels 
and  boarding-houses,  are  that  it  is  made  in  every  way  the 
reverse  of  what  it  should  be.  The  water  is  hot,  perhaps, 
but  not  boiling ;  the  tea  has  a  general  flat,  stale,  smoky 
taste,  devoid  of  life  or  spirit ;  and  it  is  served,  usually,  with 
thin  milk  instead  of  cream.  Cream  is  as  essential  to  the 
richness  of  tea  as  of  coffee.  We  could  wish  that  the  English 
fashion  might  generally  prevail,  of  giving  the  traveler  his 
own  kettle  of  boiling  water  and  his  own  tea-chest,  and  let 
ting  him  make  tea  for  himself.  At  all  events  he  would 
then  be  sure  of  one  merit  in  his  tea,  —  it  would  be  hot,  a 
very  simple  and  obvious  virtue,  but  one  very  seldom  ob 
tained. 

Chocolate  is  a  French  and  Spanish  article,  and  one  sel 
dom  served  on  American  tables.  We  in  America,  however, 
make  an  article  every  way  equal  to  any  which  can  be  im 
ported  from  Paris,  and  he  who  buys  Baker's  best  vanilla- 
chocolate  may  rest  assured  that  no  foreign  land  can  furnish 
anything  better.  A  very  rich  and  delicious  beverage  may 
be  made  by  dissolving  this  in  milk  slowly  boiled  down  after 
the  French  fashion. 

I  have  now  gone  over  all  the  ground  I  laid  out,  as  com 
prising  the  great  first  principles  of  cookery  ;  and  I  would 
here  modestly  offer  the  opinion  that  a  table  where  all  these 
principles  are  carefully  observed  would  need  few  dainties. 


180          HOUSE  AND  HOME  PAPERS 

The  struggle  after  so-called  delicacies  comes  from  the  poor 
ness  of  common  things.  Perfect  bread  and  butter  would 
soon  drive  cake  out  of  the  field  ;  it  has  done  so  in  many 
families.  Nevertheless,  I  have  a  word  to  say  under  the 
head  of  Confectionery,  meaning  by  this  the  whole  range 
of  ornamental  cookery,  —  or  pastry,  ices,  jellies,  preserves, 
etc.  The  art  of  making  all  these  very  perfectly  is  far  bet 
ter  understood  in  America  than  the  art  of  common  cook 
ing. 

There  are  more  women  who  know  how  to  make  good 
cake  than  good  bread,  —  more  who  can  furnish  you  with 
a  good  ice-cream  than  a  well-cooked  mutton-chop  ;  a  fair 
charlotte -russe  is  easier  to  come  by  than  a  perfect  cup  of 
coffee ;  and  you  shall  find  a  sparkling  jelly  to  your  dessert 
where  you  sighed  in  vain  for  so  simple  a  luxury  as  a  well- 
cooked  potato. 

Our  fair  countrywomen  might  rest  upon  their  laurels  in 
these  higher  fields,  and  turn  their  great  energy  and  ingenuity 
to  the  study  of  essentials.  To  do  common  things  perfectly 
is  far  better  worth  our  endeavor  than  to  do  uncommon  things 
respectably.  We  Americans  in  many  things  as  yet  have 
been  a  little  inclined  to  begin  making  our  shirt  at  the  ruffle ; 
but  nevertheless,  when  we  set  about  it,  we  can  make  the 
shirt  as  nicely  as  anybody,  —  it  needs  only  that  we  turn  our 
attention  to  it,  resolved  that,  ruffle  or  no  ruffle,  the  shirt 
we  will  have. 

I  have  also  a  few  words  to  say  as  to  the  prevalent  ideas 
in  respect  to  French  cookery.  Having  heard  much  of  it, 
with  no  very  distinct  idea  what  it  is,  our  people  have  some 
how  fallen  into  the  notion  that  its  forte  lies  in  high  spicing, 
—  and  so,  when  our  cooks  put  a  great  abundance  of  clove, 
mace,  nutmeg,  and  cinnamon  into  their  preparations,  they 
fancy  that  they  are  growing  up  to  be  French  cooks.  But 
the  fact  is,  that  the  Americans  and  English  are  far  more 
given  to  spicing  than  the  French.  Spices  in  our  made 


COOKERY  181 

dishes  are  abundant,  and  their  taste  is  strongly  pronounced. 
In  living  a  year  in  France  I  forgot  the  taste  of  nutmeg, 
clove,  and  allspice,  which  had  met  me  in  so  many  dishes  in 
America. 

The  thing  may  be  briefly  defined.  The  English  and 
Americans  deal  in  sjnces,  the  French  in  flavors,  —  flavors 
many  and  subtile,  imitating  often  in  their  delicacy  those 
subtile  Mendings  which  Nature  produces  in  high-flavored 
fruits.  The  recipes  of  our  cookery-books  are  most  of  them 
of  English  origin,  coming  down  from  the  times  of  our 
phlegmatic  ancestors,  when  the  solid,  burly,  beefy  growth  of 
the  foggy  island  required  the  heat  of  fiery  condiments,  and 
could  digest  heavy  sweets.  Witness  the  national  recipe  for 
plum-pudding,  which  may  be  rendered  :  Take  a  pound  of 
every  indigestible  substance  you  can  think  of,  boil  into  a 
cannon-ball,  and  serve  in  flaming  brandy.  So  of  the  Christ 
mas  mince-pie  and  many  other  national  dishes.  But  in 
America,  owing  to  our  brighter  skies  and  more  fervid 
climate,  we  have  developed  an  acute,  nervous  delicacy  of 
temperament  far  more  akin  to  that  of  France  than  of  Eng 
land. 

Half  of  the  recipes  in  our  cook-books  are  mere  murder  to 
such  constitutions  and  stomachs  as  we  grow  here.  We  re 
quire  to  ponder  these  things,  and  think  how  we  in  our 
climate  and  under  our  circumstances  ought  to  live,  and,  in 
doing  so,  we  may,  without  accusation  of  foreign  foppery, 
take  some  leaves  from  many  foreign  books. 

But  Christopher  has  prosed  long  enough.  I  must  now 
read  this  to  my  wife,  and  see  what  she  says. 


182  HOUSE  AND  HOME  PAPERS 

XI 
OUR  HOUSE 

Our  gallant  Bob  Stephens,  into  whose  lifeboat  our 
Marianne  has  been  received,  has  lately  taken  the  mania  of 
housebuilding  into  his  head.  Bob  is  somewhat  fastidious, 
difficult  to  please,  fond  of  domesticities  and  individualities; 
and  such  a  man  never  can  fit  himself  into  a  house  built  by 
another,  and  accordingly  housebuilding  has  always  been  his 
favorite  mental  recreation.  During  all  his  courtship,  as 
much  time  was  taken  up  in  planning  a  future  house  as  if  he 
had  money  to  build  one  ;  and  all  Marianne's  patterns,  and 
the  backs  of  half  their  letters,  were  scrawled  with  ground- 
plans  and  elevations.  But  latterly  this  chronic  disposition 
has  been  quickened  into  an  acute  form  by  the  falling-in  of 
some  few  thousands  to  their  domestic  treasury,  —  left  as 
the  sole  residuum  of  a  painstaking  old  aunt,  who  took  it 
into  her  head  to  make  a  will  in  Bob's  favor,  leaving,  among 
other  good  things,  a  nice  little  bit  of  land  in  a  rural  district 
half  an  hour's  railroad  ride  from  Boston. 

So  now  ground-plans  thicken,  and  my  wife  is  being  con 
sulted  morning,  noon,  and  night ;  and  I  never  come  into 
the  room  without  finding  their  heads  close  together  over  a 
paper,  and  hearing  Bob  expatiate  on  his  favorite  idea  of  a 
library.  He  appears  to  have  got  so  far  as  this,  that  the 
ceiling  is  to  be  of  carved  oak,  with  ribs  running  to  a  boss 
overhead,  and  finished  medisevally  with  ultramarine  blue 
and  gilding,  —  and  then  away  he  goes  sketching  Gothic 
patterns  of  bookshelves  which  require  only  experienced 
carvers,  and  the  wherewithal  to  pay  them,  to  be  the  divinest 
things  in  the  world. 

Marianne  is  exercised  about  china-closets  and  pantries, 
and  about  a  bedroom  on  the  ground-floor,  —  for,  like  all 


OUR   HOUSE  183 

other  women  of  our  days,  she  expects  not  to  have  strength 
enough  to  run  upstairs  oftener  than  once  or  twice  a  week  ; 
and  my  wife,  who  is  a  native  genius  in  this  line,  and  has 
planned  in  her  time  dozens  of  houses  for  acquaintances, 
wherein  they  are  at  this  moment  living  happily,  goes  over 
every  day  with  her  pencil  and  ruler  the  work  of  rearranging 
the  plans,  according  as  the  ideas  of  the  young  couple  veer 
and  vary. 

One  day  Bob  is  importuned  to  give  two  feet  off  from 
his  library  for  a  closet  in  the  bedroom,  but  resists  like  a 
Trojan.  The  next  morning,  being  mollified  by  private 
domestic  supplications,  Bob  yields,  and  my  wife  rubs  out 
the  lines  of  yesterday,  two  feet  come  off  the  library,  and 
a  closet  is  constructed.  But  now  the  parlor  proves  too 
narrow,  —  the  parlor  wall  must  be  moved  two  feet  into  the 
hall.  Bob  declares  this  will  spoil  the  symmetry  of  the 
latter ;  and,  if  there  is  anything  he  wants,  it  is  a  wide, 
generous,  ample  hall  to  step  into  when  you  open  the  front 
door. 

"  Well,  then,"  says  Marianne,  "  let  's  put  two  feet  more 
into  the  width  of  the  house.'7 

"  Can't  on  account  of  the  expense,  you  see,"  says  Bob. 
"  You  see  every  additional  foot  of  outside  wall  necessitates 
so  many  more  bricks,  so  much  more  flooring,  so  much  more 
roofing,  etc." 

And  my  wife,  with  thoughtful  brow,  looks  over  the 
plans,  and  considers  how  two  feet  more  are  to  be  got  into 
the  parlor  without  moving  any  of  the  walls. 

"  I  say,"  says  Bob,  bending  over  her  shoulder,  "  here, 
take  your  two  feet  in  the  parlor,  and  put  two  more  feet 
on  to  the  other  side  of  the  hall  stairs  ;  "  and  he  dashes 
heavily  with  his  pencil. 

"  Oh,  Bob  !  "  exclaims  Marianne,  "  there  are  the  kitchen 
pantries !  you  ruin  them,  —  and  no  place  for  the  cellar 
stairs  !  " 


184          HOUSE  AND  HOME  PAPERS 

"  Hang  the  pantries  and  cellar  stairs ! "  says  Bob. 
"Mother  must  find  a  place  for  them  somewhere  else.  I 
say  the  house  must  be  roomy  and  cheerful,  and  pantries 
and  those  things  may  take  care  of  themselves ;  they  can  be 
put  somewhere,  well  enough.  No  fear  but  you  will  find  a 
place  for  them  somewhere.  What  do  you  women  always 
want  such  a  great  enormous  kitchen  for  ?  " 

"It  is  not  any  larger  than  is  necessary,"  said  my  wife, 
thoughtfully  ;  "  nothing  is  gained  by  taking  off  from  it." 

"  What  if  you  should  put  it  all  down  into  a  basement," 
suggests  Bob,  "  and  so  get  it  all  out  of  sight  together  ?  " 

"  Never,  if  it  can  be  helped,"  said  my  wife.  "  Basement 
kitchens  are  necessary  evils,  only  to  be  tolerated  in  cities 
where  land  is  too  dear  to  afford  any  other." 

So  goes  the  discussion  till  the  trio  agree  to  sleep  over  it. 
The  next  morning  an  inspiration  visits  my  wife's  pillow. 
She  is  up  and  seizes  plans  and  paper,  and,  before  six  o'clock, 
has  enlarged  the  parlor  very  cleverly  by  throwing  out  a 
bow-window.  So  waxes  and  wanes  the  prospective  house, 
innocently  battered  down  and  rebuilt  with  India-rubber  and 
black-lead.  Doors  are  cut  out  to-night  and  walled  up 
to-morrow;  windows  knocked  out  here  and  put  in  there, 
as  some  observer  suggests  possibilities  of  too  much  or  too 
little  draught.  Now  all  seems  finished,  when,  lo !  a  dis 
covery  !  There  is  no  fireplace  nor  stove-flue  in  my  lady's 
bedroom,  and  can  be  none  without  moving  the  bathing- 
room.  Pencil  and  India-rubber  are  busy  again,  and  for 
a  while  the  whole  house  seems  to  threaten  to  fall  to  pieces 
with  the  confusion  of  the  moving ;  the  bath-room  wanders 
like  a  ghost,  now  invading  a  closet,  now  threatening  the 
tranquillity  of  the  parlor,  till  at  last  it  is  laid,  by  some 
unheard-of  calculations  of  my  wife's,  and  sinks  to  rest  in  a 
place  so  much  better  that  everybody  wonders  it  never  was 
thought  of  before. 

"  Papa,"   said  Jenny,  "  it   appears   to   me  people  don't 


OUR   HOUSE  185 

exactly  know  what  they  want  when  they  build ;  why  don't 
you  write  a  paper  on  housebuilding  ?  " 

"  I  have  thought  of  it,"  said  I,  with  the  air  of  a  man 
called  to  settle  some  great  reform.  "  It  must  be  entirely 
because  Christopher  has  not  written  that  our  young  people 
and  mamma  are  tangling  themselves  daily  in  webs  which 
are  untangled  the  next  day." 

"  You  see,"  said  Jenny,  "  they  have  only  just  so  much 
money,  and  they  want  everything  they  can  think  of  under 
the  sun.  There's  Bob  been  studying  architectural  anti 
quities,  and  nobody  knows  what,  and  sketching  all  sorts  of 
curly-whorlies ;  and  Marianne  has  her  notions  about  a  par 
lor  and  boudoir  and  china  closets  and  bedroom  closets ;  and 
Bob  wants  a  baronial  hall  ;  and  mamma  stands  out  for 
linen  closets  and  bathing-rooms  and  all  that ;  and  so,  among 
them  all  it  will  just  end  in  getting  them  head  over  ears  in 
debt." 

The  thing  struck  me  as  not  improbable. 

"  I  don't  know,  Jenny,  whether  my  writing  an  article  is 
going  to  prevent  all  this ;  but  as  my  time  in  the  l  Atlantic ' 
is  coming  round,  I  may  as  well  write  on  what  I  am  obliged 
to  think  of,  and  so  I  will  give  a  paper  on  the  subject  to 
enliven  our  next  evening's  session." 

So  that  evening,  when  Bob  and  Marianne  had  dropped  in 
as  usual,  and  while  the  customary  work  of  drawing  and 
rubbing  out  was  going  on  at  Mrs.  Crowfield's  sofa,  I  pro 
duced  my  paper  and  read  as  follows  :  — 

OUR  HOUSE 

There  is  a  place,  called  "  our  house,"  which  everybody 
knows  of.  The  sailor  talks  of  it  in  his  dreams  at  sea.  The 
wounded  soldier,  turning  in  his  uneasy  hospital-bed,  bright 
ens  at  the  word ;  it  is  like  the  dropping  of  cool  water  in 
the  desert,  like  the  touch  of  cool  fingers  on  a  burning  brow. 
"  Our  house,"  he  says  feebly,  and  the  light  comes  back  into 


186  HOUSE   AND   HOME   PAPERS 

his  dim  eyes ;  for  all  homely  charities,  all  fond  thoughts, 
all  purities,  all  that  man  loves  on  earth  or  hopes  for  in 
heaven,  rise  with  the  word. 

"  Our  house  "  may  be  in  any  style  of  architecture,  low 
or  high.  It  may  be  the  brown  old  farmhouse,  with  its  tall 
wellsweep,  or  the  one-story  gambrel-roofed  cottage,  or  the 
large,  square,  white  house,  with  green  blinds,  under  the 
wind-swung  elms  of  a  century  ;  or  it  may  be  the  log-cabin 
of  the  wilderness,  with  its  one  room,  —  still  there  is  a  spell 
in  the  memory  of  it  beyond  all  conjurations.  Its  stone  and 
brick  and  mortar  are  like  no  other ;  its  very  clapboards  and 
shingles  are  dear  to  us,  powerful  to  bring  back  the  memo 
ries  of  early  days  and  all  that  is  sacred  in  home  love. 

"  Papa  is  getting  quite  sentimental,"  whispered  Jenny, 
loud  enough  for  me  to  hear.  I  shook  my  head  at  her  im 
pressively,  and  went  on  undaunted. 

There  is  no  one  fact  of  our  human  existence  that  has  a 
stronger  influence  upon  us  than  the  house  we  dwell  in, 
especially  that  in  which  our  earlier  and  more  impressible 
years  are  spent.  The  building  and  arrangement  of  a  house 
influence  the  health,  the  comfort,  the  morals,  the  religion. 
There  have  been  houses  built  so  devoid  of  all  consideration 
for  the  occupants,  so  rambling  and  haphazard  in  the  dis 
posal  of  rooms,  so  sunless  and  cheerless  and  wholly  with 
out  snugness  or  privacy,  as  to  make  it  seem  impossible 
to  live  a  joyous,  generous,  rational,  religious  family  life  in 
them. 

There  are,  we  shame  to  say,  in  our  cities  things  called 
houses,  built  and  rented  by  people  who  walk  erect  and  have 
the  general  air  and  manner  of  civilized  and  Christianized 
men,  which  are  so  inhuman  in  their  building  that  they  can 
only  be  called  snares  and  traps  for  souls,  —  places  where 
children  cannot  well  escape  growing  up  iilthy  and  impure ; 


OUR   HOUSE  187 

places  where  to  form  a  home  is  impossible,  and  to  live  a 
decent,  Christian  life  would  require  miraculous  strength. 

A  celebrated  British  philanthropist,  who  had  devoted 
much  study  to  the  dwellings  of  the  poor,  gave  it  as  his 
opinion  that  the  temperance  societies  were  a  hopeless  under 
taking  in  London  unless  these  dwellings  underwent  a  trans 
formation.  They  were  so  squalid,  so  dark,  so  comfortless, 
so  constantly  pressing  upon  the  senses  foulness,  pain,  and 
inconvenience,  that  it  was  only  by  being  drugged  with  gin 
and  opium  that  their  miserable  inhabitants  could  find  heart 
to  drag  on  life  from  day  to  day.  He  had  himself  tried  the 
experiment  of  reforming  a  drunkard  by  taking  him  from 
one  of  these  loathsome  dens,  and  enabling  him  to  rent  a 
tenement  in  a  block  of  model  lodging-houses  which  had 
been  built  under  his  supervision.  The  young  man  had 
been  a  designer  of  figures  for  prints  ;  he  was  of  a  delicate 
frame,  and  a  nervous,  susceptible  temperament.  Shut  in 
one  miserable  room  with  his  wife  and  little  children,  with 
out  the  possibility  of  pure  air,  with  only  filthy,  fetid  water  to 
drink,  with  the  noise  of  other  miserable  families  resounding 
through  the  thin  partitions,  what  possibility  was  there  of 
doing  anything  except  by  the  help  of  stimulants,  which  for 
a  brief  hour  lifted  him  above  the  perception  of  these  mis 
eries  ?  Changed  at  once  to  a  neat  flat,  where,  for  the  same 
rent  as  his  former  den,  he  had  three  good  rooms,  with  water 
for  drinking,  house-service,  and  bathing  freely  supplied, 
and  the  blessed  sunshine  and  air  coming  in  through  win 
dows  well  arranged  for  ventilation,  he  became  in  a  few 
weeks  a  new  man.  In  the  charms  of  the  little  spot  which 
he  could  call  home,  its  quiet,  its  order,  his  former  talent 
came  back  to  him,  and  he  found  strength,  in  pure  air  and 
pure  water  and  those  purer  thoughts  of  which  they  are  the 
emblems,  to  abandon  burning  and  stupefying  stimulants. 

The  influence  of  dwelling-houses  for  good  or  for  evil  — 
their  influence  on  the  brain,  the  nerves,  and,  through  these, 


188  HOUSE  AND  HOME  PAPERS 

on  the  heart  and  life  —  is  one  of  those  things  that  cannot  be 
enough  pondered  by  those  who  build  houses  to  sell  or  rent. 

Something  more  generous  ought  to  inspire  a  man  than 
merely  the  percentage  which  he  can  get  for  his  money.  He 
who  would  build  houses  should  think  a  little  on  the  sub 
ject.  He  should  reflect  what  houses  are  for,  what  they  may 
be  made  to  do  for  human  beings.  The  great  majority  of 
houses  in  cities  are  not  built  by  the  indwellers  themselves ; 
they  are  built  for  them  by  those  who  invest  their  money 
in  this  way,  with  little  other  thought  than  the  percentage 
which  the  investment  will  return. 

For  persons  of  ample  fortune  there  are,  indeed,  palatial 
residences,  with  all  that  wealth  can  do  to  render  life  de 
lightful.  But  in  that  class  of  houses  which  must  be  the 
lot  of  the  large  majority,  those  which  must  be  chosen  by 
young  men  in  the  beginning  of  life,  when  means  are  com 
paratively  restricted,  there  is  yet  wide  room  for  thought  arid 
the  judicious  application  of  money. 

In  looking  over  houses  to  be  rented  by  persons  of  mod 
erate  means,  one  cannot  help  longing  to  build,  —  one  sees 
so  many  ways  in  which  the  same  sum  which  built  an  in 
convenient  and  unpleasant  house  might  have  been  made  to 
build  a  delightful  one. 

"  That  Js  so  !  "  said  Bob  with  emphasis.  "  Don't  you  re 
member,  Marianne,  how  many  dismal,  commonplace,  shabby 
houses  we  trailed  through  ?  " 

"  Yes,"  said  Marianne.  "  You  remember  those  houses 
with  such  little  squeezed  rooms  and  that  flourishing  stair 
case,  with  the  colored-glass  china-closet  window,  and  no 
butler's  sink  ?  " 

"  Yes,"  said  Bob  ;  "  and  those  astonishing,  abominable 
stone  abortions  that  adorned  the  doorsteps.  People  do  lay 
out  a  deal  of  money  to  make  houses  look  ugly,  it  must  be 
confessed." 


OUR  HOUSE  189 

"  One  would  willingly,"  said  Marianne,  "  dispense  with 
frightful  stone  ornaments  in  front,  and  with  heavy  mould 
ings  inside,  which  are  of  no  possible  use  or  beauty,  and  with 
showy  plaster  cornices  and  centrepieces  in  the  parlor  ceil 
ings,  and  even  with  marble  mantels,  for  the  luxury  of  hot 
and  cold  water  in  each  chamber,  and  a  couple  of  comfortable 
bathrooms.  Then,  the  disposition  of  windows  and  doors  is 
so  wholly  without  regard  to  convenience  !  How  often  we 
find  rooms,  meant  for  bedrooms,  where  really  there  is  no 
good  place  for  either  bed  or  dressing-table  !  " 

Here  my  wife  looked  up,  having  just  finished  redrawing 
the  plans  to  the  latest  alteration. 

"  One  of  the  greatest  reforms  that  could  be,  in  these  re 
forming  days,"  she  observed,  "  would  be  to  have  women 
architects.  The  mischief  with  houses  built  to  rent  is  that 
they  are  all  mere  male  contrivances.  No  woman  would 
ever  plan  chambers  where  there  is  no  earthly  place  to  set 
a  bed  except  against  a  window  or  door,  or  waste  the  room 
in  entries  that  might  be  made  into  closets.  I  don't  see,  for 
my  part,  apropos  to  the  modern  movement  for  opening  new 
professions  to  the  female  sex,  why  there  should  not  be  well- 
educated  female  architects.  The  planning  and  arrangement 
of  houses,  and  the  laying-out  of  grounds,  are  a  fair  subject 
of  womanly  knowledge  and  taste.  It  is  the  teaching  of 
Nature.  What  would  anybody  think  of  a  bluebird's  nest 
that  had  been  built  entirely  by  Mr.  Blue,  without  the  help 
of  his  wife  ?" 

"  My  dear,"  said  I,  "  you  must  positively  send  a  paper 
on  this  subject  to  the  next  Woman's  Rights  Convention." 

"  I  am  of  Sojourner  Truth's  opinion,"  said  my  wife,  — 
"  that  the  best  way  to  prove  the  propriety  of  one's  doing 
anything  is  to  go  and  do  it.  A  woman  who  should  have 
energy  to  grow  through  the  preparatory  studies  and  set  to 
work  in  this  field  would,  I  am  sure,  soon  find  employ 
ment." 


190  HOUSE  AND  HOME  PAPERS 

"  If  she  did  as  well  as  you  would  do,  my  dear,"  said  I. 
"  There  are  plenty  of  young  women  in  our  Boston  high 
schools  who  are  going  through  higher  fields  of  mathematics 
than  are  required  by  the  architect,  and  the  schools  for  de 
sign  show  the  flexibility  and  fertility  of  the  female  pencil. 
The  thing  appears  to  me  altogether  more  feasible  than  many 
other  openings  which  have  been  suggested  to  woman." 

"  Well,"  said  Jenny,  "  is  n't  papa  ever  to  go  on  with 
his  paper  ?  " 

I  continued :  — 

What  ought  "  our  house  "  to  be  ?  Could  any  other 
question  be  asked  admitting  in  its  details  of  such  varied 
answers,  —  answers  various  as  the  means,  the  character, 
and  situation  of  different  individuals  ?  But  there  are  great 
wants,  pertaining  to  every  human  being,  into  which  all  lesser 
ones  run.  There  are  things  in  a  house  that  every  one,  high 
or  low,  rich  or  poor,  ought,  according  to  his  means,  to  seek. 
I  think  I  shall  class  them  according  to  the  elemental  divi 
sion  of  the  old  philosophers  :  Fire,  Air,  Earth,  and  Water. 
These  form  the  groundwork  of  this  need-be,  —  the  sine- 
qua-nons  of  a  house. 

"  Fire,  air,  earth,  and  water  !  I  don't  understand,"  said 
Jenny. 

"  Wait  a  little  till  you  do,  then,"  said  I.  "  I  will  try 
to  make  my  meaning  plain." 

The  first  object  of  a  house  is  shelter  from  the  elements. 
This  object  is  effected  by  a  tent  or  wigwam  which  keeps  off 
rain  and  wind.  The  first  disadvantage  of  this  shelter  is, 
that  the  vital  air  which  you  take  into  your  lungs,  and  on 
the  purity  of  which  depends  the  purity  of  blood  and  brain 
and  nerves,  is  vitiated.  In  the  wigwam  or  tent  you  are 


OUR   HOUSE  191 

constantly  taking  in  poison,  more  or  less  active,  with  every 
inspiration.  Napoleon  had  his  army  sleep  without  tents. 
He  stated  that  from  experience  he  found  it  more  healthy, 
and  wonderful  have  been  the  instances  of  delicate  persons 
gaining  constantly  in  vigor  from  being  obliged,  in  the  midst 
of  hardships,  to  sleep  constantly  in  the  open  air.  Now  the 
first  problem  in  housebuilding  is  to  combine  the  advantage 
of  shelter  with  the  fresh  elasticity  of  outdoor  air.  I  am 
not  going  to  give  here  a  treatise  on  ventilation,  but  merely 
to  say,  in  general  terms,  that  the  first  object  of  a  house 
builder  or  contriver  should  be  to  make  a  healthy  house  ;  and 
the  first  requisite  of  a  healthy  house  is  a  pure,  sweet,  elastic 
air. 

I  am  in  favor,  therefore,  of  those  plans  of  housebuilding 
which  have  wide  central  spaces,  whether  halls  or  courts, 
into  which  all  the  rooms  open,  and  which  necessarily  pre 
serve  a  body  of  fresh  air  for  the  use  of  them  all.  In  hot 
climates  this  is  the  object  of  the  central  court  which  cuts 
into  the  body  of  the  house,  with  its  fountain  and  flowers, 
and  its  galleries,  into  which  the  various  apartments  open. 
When  people  are  restricted  for  space,  and  cannot  afford  to 
give  up  wide  central  portions  of  the  house  for  the  mere 
purposes  of  passage,  this  central  hall  can  be  made  a  pleas 
ant  sitting-room.  With  tables,  chairs,  book-cases,  and  sofas 
comfortably  disposed,  this  ample  central  room  above  and 
below  is,  in  many  respects,  the  most  agreeable  lounging  room 
of  the  house ;  while  the  parlors  below  and  the  chambers 
above,  opening  upon  it,  form  agreeable  withdrawing  rooms 
for  purposes  of  greater  privacy. 

It  is  customary  with  many  persons  to  sleep  with  bedroom 
windows  open,  —  a  very  imperfect  and  often  dangerous 
mode  of  procuring  that  supply  of  fresh  air  which  a  sleeping- 
room  requires.  In  a  house  constructed  in  the  manner  in 
dicated,  windows  might  be  freely  left  open  in  these  central 
halls,  producing  there  a  constant  movement  of  air,  and  the 


192          HOUSE  AND  HOME  PAPERS 

doors  of  the  bedrooms  placed  ajar,  when  a  very  slight 
opening  in  the  windows  would  create  a  free  circulation 
through  the  apartments. 

In  the  planning  of  a  house,  thought  should  be  had  as  to 
the  general  disposition  of  the  windows,  and  the  quarters 
from  which  favoring  breezes  may  be  expected  should  be 
carefully  considered.  Windows  should  be  so  arranged  that 
draughts  of  air  can  be  thrown  quite  through  and  across  the 
house.  How  often  have  we  seen  pale  mothers  and  drooping 
babes  fanning  and  panting  during  some  of  our  hot  days  on 
the  sunny  side  of  a  house,  while  the  breeze  that  should 
have  cooled  them  beat  in  vain  against  a  dead  wall  !  One 
longs  sometimes  to  knock  holes  through  partitions,  and  let 
in  the  air  of  heaven. 

No  other  gift  of  God  so  precious,  so  inspiring,  is  treated 
with  such  utter  irreverence  and  contempt  in  the  calculations 
of  us  mortals  as  this  same  air  of  heaven.  A  sermon  on 
oxygen,  if  one  had  a  preacher  who  understood  the  subject, 
might  do  more  to  repress  sin  than  the  most  orthodox  dis 
course  to  show  when  and  how  and  why  sin  came.  A  min 
ister  gets  up  in  a  crowded  lecture-room,  where  the  mephitic 
air  almost  makes  the  candles  burn  blue,  and  bewails  the 
dead  ness  of  the  church,  —  the  church  the  while,  drugged 
by  the  poisoned  air,  growing  sleepier  and  sleepier,  though 
they  feel  dreadfully  wicked  for  being  so. 

Little  Jim,  who,  fresh  from  his  afternoon's  ramble  in 
the  fields,  last  evening  said  his  prayers  dutifully,  and  lay 
down  to  sleep  in  a  most  Christian  frame,  this  morning  sits 
up  in  bed  with  his  hair  bristling  with  crossness,  strikes  at 
his  nurse,  and  declares  he  won't  say  his  prayers,  —  that  he 
don't  want  to  be  good.  The  simple  difference  is,  that  the 
child,  having  slept  in  a  close  box  of  a  room,  his  brain  all 
night  fed  by  poison,  is  in  a  mild  state  of  moral  insanity. 
Delicate  women  remark  that  it  takes  them  till  eleven  or 
twelve  o'clock  to  get  up  their  strength  in  the  morning. 


OUR    HOUSE  193 

Query  :  Do  they  sleep  with  closed  windows  and  doors,  and 
with  heavy  bed-curtains  ? 

The  houses  built  by  our  ancestors  were  better  ventilated 
in  certain  respects  than  modern  ones,  with  all  their  improve 
ments.  The  great  central  chimney,  with  its  open  fireplaces 
in  the  different  rooms,  created  a  constant  current  which  car 
ried  off  foul  and  vitiated  air.  In  these  days,  how  common 
is  it  to  provide  rooms  with  only  a  flue  for  a  stove !  This 
flue  is  kept  shut  in  summer,  and  in  winter  opened  only  to 
admit  a  close  stove,  which  burns  away  the  vital  portion  of 
the  air  quite  as  fast  as  the  occupants  breathe  it  away.  The 
sealing  up  of  fireplaces  and  introduction  of  air-tight  stoves 
may,  doubtless,  be  a  saving  of  fuel ;  it  saves,  too,  more  than 
that,  —  in  thousands  and  thousands  of  cases  it  has  saved 
people  from  all  further  human  wants,  and  put  an  end  forever 
to  any  needs  short  of  the  six  feet  of  narrow  earth  which 
are  man's  only  inalienable  property.  In  other  words,  since 
the  invention  of  air-tight  stoves,  thousands  have  died  of  slow 
poison.  It  is  a  terrible  thing  to  reflect  upon,  that  our  North 
ern  winters  last  from  November  to  May,  six  long  months, 
in  which  many  families  confine  themselves  to  one  room, 
of  which  every  window-crack  has  been  carefully  calked  to 
make  it  air-tight,  where  an  air-tight  stove  keeps  the  atmos 
phere  at  a  temperature  between  eighty  and  ninety,  and  the 
inmates  sitting  there,  with  all  their  winter  clothes  on,  be 
come  enervated  both  by  the  heat  and  by  the  poisoned  air,  for 
which  there  is  no  escape  but  the  occasional  opening  of  a  door. 

It  is  no  wonder  that  the  first  result  of  all  this  is  such  a 
delicacy  of  skin  and  lungs  that  about  half  the  inmates  are 
obliged  to  give  up  going  into  the  open  air  during  the  six 
cold  months,  because  they  invariably  catch  cold  if  they  do 
so.  It  is  no  wonder  that  the  cold  caught  about  the  first  of 
December  has  by  the  first  of  March  become  a  fixed  con 
sumption,  and  that  the  opening  of  the  spring,  which  ought 
to  bring  life  and  health,  in  so  many  cases  brings  death. 


194  HOUSE  AND  HOME  PAPERS 

We  hear  of  the  lean  condition  in  which  the  poor  bears 
emerge  from  their  six  months'  wintering,  during  which  they 
subsist  on  the  fat  which  they  have  acquired  the  previous 
summer.  Even  so,  in  our  long  winters,  multitudes  of  deli 
cate  people  subsist  on  the  daily  waning  strength  which  they 
acquired  in  the  season  when  windows  and  doors  were  open, 
and  fresh  air  was  a  constant  luxury.  No  wonder  wre  hear 
of  spring  fever  and  spring  biliousness,  and  have  thousands 
of  nostrums  for  clearing  the  blood  in  the  spring.  All  these 
things  are  the  pantings  and  palpitations  of  a  system  run 
down  under  slow  poison,  unable  to  get  a  step  farther. 
Better,  far  better,  the  old  houses  of  the  olden  time,  with 
their  great  roaring  fires,  and  their  bedrooms  where  the  snow 
came  in  and  the  wintry  winds  whistled.  Then,  to  be  sure, 
you  froze  your  back  while  you  burned  your  face  ;  your  water 
froze  nightly  in  your  pitcher ;  your  breath  congealed  in  ice- 
wreaths  on  the  blankets ;  and  you  could  write  your  name 
on  the  pretty  snow-wreath  that  had  sifted  in  through  the 
window-cracks.  But  you  woke  full  of  life  and  vigor,  — 
you  looked  out  into  the  whirling  snowstorms  without  a 
shiver,  and  thought  nothing  of  plunging  through  drifts  as 
high  as  your  head  on  your  daily  way  to  school.  You  jin 
gled  in  sleighs,  you  snowballed,  you  lived  in  snow  like  a 
snowbird,  and  your  blood  coursed  and  tingled,  in  full  tide 
of  good,  merry,  real  life,  through  your  veins,  —  none  of  the 
slow-creeping,  black  blood  which  clogs  the  brain  and  lies 
like  a  weight  on  the  vital  wheels ! 

"  Mercy  upon  us,  papa !  "  said  Jenny,  "  I  hope  we  need 
not  go  back  to  such  houses  ?  " 

"  No,  my  dear,"  I  replied.  "  I  only  said  that  such 
houses  were  better  than  those  which  are  all  winter  closed 
by  double  windows  and  burnt-out  air-tight  stoves." 

The  perfect  house  is  one  in  which  there  is  a  constant 
escape  of  every  foul  and  vitiated  particle  of  air  through 


OUR   HOUSE  195 

one  opening,  while  a  constant  supply  of  fresh  outdoor  air 
is  admitted  by  another.  In  winter,  this  outdoor  air  must 
pass  through  some  process  by  which  it  is  brought  up  to  a 
temperate  warmth. 

Take  a  single  room,  and  suppose  on  one  side  a  current 
of  outdoor  air  which  has  been  warmed  by  passing  through 
the  air  chamber  of  a  modern  furnace.  Its  temperature  need 
not  be  above  sixty-five,  —  it  answers  breathing  purposes 
better  at  that.  On  the  other  side  of  the  room  let  there  be 
an  open  wood  or  coal  fire.  One  cannot  conceive  the  pur 
poses  of  warmth  and  ventilation  more  perfectly  combined. 

Suppose  a  house  with  a  great  central  hall,  into  which 
a  current  of  fresh,  temperately  warmed  air  is  continually 
pouring.  Each  chamber  opening  upon  this  hall  has  a 
chimney  up  whose  flue  the  rarefied  air  is  constantly  pass 
ing,  drawing  up  with  it  all  the  foul  and  poisonous  gases. 
That  house  is  well  ventilated,  and  in  a  way  that  need  bring 
no  dangerous  draughts  upon  the  most  delicate  invalid.  For 
the  better  securing  of  privacy  in  sleeping-rooms,  we  have 
seen  two  doors  employed,  one  of  which  is  made  with  slats, 
like  a  window-blind,  so  that  air  is  freely  transmitted  with 
out  exposing  the  interior. 

When  we  speak  of  fresh  air,  we  insist  on  the  full  rigor 
of  the  term.  It  must  not  be  the  air  of  a  cellar,  heavily 
laden  with  the  poisonous  nitrogen  of  turnips  and  cabbages, 
but  good,  fresh,  outdoor  air  from  a  cold-air  pipe,  so  placed 
as  not  to  get  the  lower  stratum  near  the  ground,  where 
heavy  damps  and  exhalations  collect,  but  high  up,  in  just 
the  clearest  and  most  elastic  region. 

The  conclusion  of  the  whole  matter  is,  that  as  all  of 
man's  and  woman's  peace  and  comfort,  all  their  love,  all 
their  amiability,  all  their  religion,  have  got  to  come  to 
them,  while  they  live  in  this  world,  through  the  medium 
of  the  brain,  —  and  as  black,  uncleansed  blood  acts  on  the 
brain  as  a  poison,  and  as  no  other  than  black,  uncleansed 


196  HOUSE  AND  HOME  PAPERS 

blood  can  be  got  by  the  lungs  out  of  impure  air,  —  the  first 
object  of  the  man  who  builds  a  house  is  to  secure  a  pure 
and  healthy  atmosphere  therein. 

Therefore,  in  allotting  expenses,  set  this  down  as  a 
must-be:  "  Our  house  must  have  fresh  air,  —  everywhere, 
at  all  times,  winter  and  summer."  Whether  we  have 
stone  facings  or  no  ;  whether  our  parlor  has  cornices  or 
marble  mantles  or  no ;  whether  our  doors  are  machine- 
made  or  hand  -  made.  All  our  fixtures  shall  be  of  the 
plainest  and  simplest,  but  we  will  have  fresh  air.  We 
will  open  our  door  with  a  latch  and  string,  if  we  cannot 
afford  lock  and  knob  and  fresh  air  too  ;  but  in  our  house 
we  will  live  cleanly  and  Christianly.  We  will  no  more 
breathe  the  foul  air  rejected  from  a  neighbor's  lungs  than 
we  will  use  a  neighbor's  tooth-brush  and  hair-brush.  Such 
is  the  first  essential  of  "  our  house,"  •  —  the  first  great  ele 
ment  of  human  health  and  happiness,  —  AIR. 

"  I  say,  Marianne,"  said  Bob,  "  have  we  got  fireplaces 
in  our  chambers  ?  " 

"  Mamma  took  care  of  that,"  said  Marianne. 

"  You  may  be  quite  sure,"  said  I,  "  if  your  mother  has 
had  a  hand  in  planning  your  house,  that  the  ventilation  is 
cared  for." 

It  must  be  confessed  that  Bob's  principal  idea  in  a  house 
had  been  a  Gothic  library,  and  his  mind  had  labored  more 
on  the  possibility  of  adapting  some  favorite  bits  from  the 
baronial  antiquities  to  modern  needs  than  on  anything  so 
terrestrial  as  air.  Therefore  he  awoke  as  from  a  dream, 
and  taking  two  or  three  monstrous  inhalations,  he  seized 
the  plans  and  began  looking  over  them  with  new  energy. 
Meanwhile  I  went  on  with  my  prelection. 

The  second  great  vital  element  for  which  provision  must 
be  made  in  "  our  house  "  is  FIRE.  By  which  I  do  not  mean 
merely  artificial  fire,  but  fire  in  all  its  extent  and  branches, 


OUR   HOUSE  197 

—  the  heavenly  fire  which  God  sends  us  daily  on  the  bright 
wings  of  sunbeams,  as  well  as  the  mimic  fires  by  which  we 
warm  our  dwellings,  cook  our  food,  and  light  our  nightly 
darkness. 

To  begin,  then,  with  heavenly  fire  or  sunshine.  If  God's 
gift  of  vital  air  is  neglected  and  undervalued,  His  gift  of 
sunshine  appears  to  be  hated.  There  are  many  houses 
where  not  a  cent  has  been  expended  on  ventilation,  but 
where  hundreds  of  dollars  have  been  freely  lavished  to  keep 
out  the  sunshine.  The  chamber,  truly,  is  tight  as  a  box  ; 
it  has  no  fireplace,  not  even  a  ventilator  opening  into  the 
stove-flue ;  but,  oh,  joy  and  gladness  !  it  has  outside  blinds 
and  inside  folding-shutters,  so  that  in  the  brightest  of  days  we 
may  create  there  a  darkness  that  may  be  felt.  To  observe 
the  generality  of  New  England  houses,  a  spectator  might  im 
agine  they  were  planned  for  the  torrid  zone,  where  the  great 
object  is  to  keep  out  a  furnace  draught  of  burning  air. 

But  let  us  look  over  the  months  of  our  calendar.  In 
which  of  them  do  we  not  need  fires  on  our  hearths  ?  We 
will  venture  to  say  that  from  October  to  June  all  families, 
whether  they  actually  have  it  or  not,  would  be  the  more 
comfortable  for  a  morning  and  evening  fire.  For  eight 
months  in  the  year  the  weather  varies  on  the  scale  of  cool, 
cold,  colder,  and  freezing  ;  and  for  all  the  four  other  months 
what  is  the  number  of  days  that  really  require  the  torrid- 
zone  system  of  shutting  up  houses  ?  We  all  know  that  ex 
treme  heat  is  the  exception,  and  not  the  rule. 

Yet  let  anybody  travel,  as  I  did  last  year,  through  the 
valley  of  the  Connecticut,  and  observe  the  houses.  All 
clean  and  white  and  neat  and  well-to-do,  with  their  turfy 
yards  and  their  breezy  great  elms,  but  all  shut  up  from 
basement  to  attic,  as  if  the  inmates  had  all  sold  out  and 
gone  to  China.  Not  a  window-blind  open  above  or  below. 
Is  the  house  inhabited  ?  No,  —  yes,  —  there  is  a  faint 
stream  of  blue  smoke  from  the  kitchen  chimney,  and  half  a 


198  HOUSE    AND   HOME    PAPERS 

window-blind  open  in  some  distant  Lack  part  of  the  house. 
They  are  living  there  in  the  dim  shadows,  bleaching  like 
potato-sprouts  in  the  cellar. 

"  I  can  tell  you  why  they  do  it,  papa,"  said  Jenny. 
"  It  's  the  flies,  and  flies  are  certainly  worthy  to  be  one  of 
the  plagues  of  Egypt.  I  can't  myself  blame  people  that 
shut  up  their  rooms  and  darken  their  houses  in  fly-time,  — 
do  you,  mamma  ?  " 

"  Not  in  extreme  cases  ;  though  I  think  there  is  but  a 
short  season  when  this  is  necessary  ;  yet  the  habit  of  shut- 
ting  up  lasts  the  year  round,  and  gives  to  New  England 
villages  that  dead,  silent,  cold,  uninhabited  look  which  is 
so  peculiar." 

"  The  one  fact  that  a  traveler  would  gather  in  passing 
through  our  villages  would  be  this,"  said  I,  "  that  the  peo 
ple  live  in  their  houses  and  in  the  dark.  Rarely  do  you 
see  doors  and  windows  open,  people  sitting  at  them,  chairs 
in  the  yard,  and  signs  that  the  inhabitants  are  living  out-of- 
doors." 

"  Well,"  said  Jenny,  "  I  have  told  you  why,  for  I  have 
been  at  Uncle  Peter's  in  summer,  and  aunt  does  her  spring- 
cleaning  in  May,  and  then  she  shuts  all  the  blinds  and 
drops  all  the  curtains,  and  the  house  stays  clean  till  Octo 
ber.  That  ?s  the  whole  of  it.  If  she  had  all  her  windows 
open,  there  would  be  paint  and  windows  to  be  cleaned 
every  week  ;  and  who  is  to  do  it  ?  For  my  part,  I  can't 
much  blame  her." 

"  Well,"  said  I,  "  I  have  my  doubts  about  the  sovereign 
efficacy  of  living  in  the  dark,  even  if  the  great  object  of  ex 
istence  were  to  be  rid  of  flies.  I  remember,  during  this 
same  journey,  stopping  for  a  day  or  two  at  a  country  board 
ing-house,  which  was  dark  as  Egypt  from  cellar  to  garret. 
The  long,  dim,  gloomy  dining-room  was  first  closed  by  out 
side  blinds,  and  then  by  impenetrable  paper  curtains,  not- 


OUR   HOUSE  199 

withstanding  which  it  swarmed  and  buzzed  like  a  beehive. 
You  found  where  the  cake  plate  was  by  the  buzz  which 
your  hand  made,  if  you  chanced  to  reach  in  that  direction. 
It  was  disagreeable,  because  in  the  darkness  flies  could  not 
always  be  distinguished  from  huckleberries  ;  and  I  could  n't 
help  wishing,  that,  since  we  must  have  the  flies,  we  might 
at  last  have  the  light  and  air  to  console  us  under  them. 
People  darken  their  rooms  and  shut  up  every  avenue  of  out 
door  enjoyment,  and  sit  and  think  of  nothing  but  flies  j  in 
fact,  flies  are  all  they  have  left.  No  wonder  they  become 
morbid  on  the  subject.'7 

"  Well  now,  papa  talks  just  like  a  man,  doesn't  he  ?  "  said 
Jenny.  "  He  has  n't  the  responsibility  of  keeping  things 
clean.  I  wonder  what  he  would  do,  if  he  were  a  house 
keeper." 

"  Do  ?  I  will  tell  you.  I  would  do  the  best  I  could. 
I  would  shut  my  eyes  on  fly-specks,  and  open  them  on  the 
beauties  of  Nature.  I  would  let  the  cheerful  sun  in  all  day 
long,  in  all  but  the  few  summer  days  when  coolness  is  the 
one  thing  needful :  those  days  may  be  soon  numbered  every 
year.  I  would  make  a  calculation  in  the  spring  how 
much  it  would  cost  to  hire  a  woman  to  keep  my  windows 
and  paint  clean,  and  I  would  do  with  one  less  gown  and 
have  her ;  and  when  I  had  spent  all  I  could  afford  on 
cleaning  windows  and  paint,  I  would  harden  my  heart  and 
turn  off  my  eyes,  and  enjoy  my  sunshine  and  my  fresh  air, 
my  breezes,  and  all  that  can  be  seen  through  the  picture 
windows  of  an  open,  airy  house,  and  snap  my  fingers  at  the 
flies.  There  you  have  it." 

"  Papa's  hobby  is  sunshine,"   said  Marianne. 

"  Why  should  n't  it  be  ?  Was  God  mistaken,  when  He 
made  the  sun  ?  Did  He  make  him  for  us  to  hold  a  life's 
battle  with  ?  Is  that  vital  power  which  reddens  the  cheek 
of  the  peach  and  pours  sweetness  through  the  fruits  and 
flowers  of  no  use  to  us  ?  Look  at  plants  that  grow  with- 


200  HOUSE   AND    HOME   PAPERS 

out  sun,  —  wan,  pale,  long-visaged,  holding  feeble,  implor 
ing  hands  of  supplication  towards  the  light.  Can  human 
beings  afford  to  throw  away  a  vitalizing  force  so  pungent, 
so  exhilarating  ?  You  remember  the  experiment  of  a  prison 
where  one  row  of  cells  had  daily  sunshine  and  the  others 
none.  With  the  same  regimen,  the  same  cleanliness,  the 
same  care,  the  inmates  of  the  sunless  cells  were  visited  with 
sickness  and  death  in  double  measure.  Our  whole  popula 
tion  in  New  England  are  groaning  and  suffering  under  afflic 
tions,  the  result  of  a  depressed  vitality,  —  neuralgia,  with  a 
new  ache  for  every  day  of  the  year,  rheumatism,  consump 
tion,  general  debility  ;  for  all  these  a  thousand  nostrums 
are  daily  advertised,  and  money  enough  is  spent  on  them  to 
equip  an  army,  while  we  are  fighting  against,  wasting,  and 
throwing  away  with  both  hands,  that  blessed  influence  which 
comes  nearest  to  pure  vitality  of  anything  God  has  given. 

"  Who  is  it  that  the  Bible  describes  as  a  sun,  arising 
with  healing  in  his  wings  ?  Surely,  that  sunshine  which 
is  the  chosen  type  and  image  of  His  love  must  be  healing 
through  all  the  recesses  of  our  daily  life,  drying  damp  and 
mould,  defending  from  moth  and  rust,  sweetening  ill  smells, 
clearing  from  the  nerves  the  vapors  of  melancholy,  making 
life  cheery.  If  I  did  not  know  Him,  I  should  certainly 
adore  and  worship  the  sun,  the  most  blessed  and  beautiful 
image  of  Him  among  things  visible  !  In  the  land  of  Egypt, 
in  the  day  of  God's  wrath,  there  was  darkness,  but  in  the 
land  of  Goshen  there  was  light.  I  am  a  Goshenite,  and 
mean  to  walk  in  the  light,  and  forswear  the  works  of  dark 
ness.  But  to  proceed  with  our  reading." 

"  Our  house  "  shall  be  set  on  a  southeast  line,  so  that 
there  shall  not  be  a  sunless  room  in  it,  and  windows  shall 
be  so  arranged  that  it  can  be  traversed  and  transpierced 
through  and  through  with  those  bright  shafts  of  light  which 
come  straight  from  God. 


OUR   HOUSE  201 

"  Our  house  "  shall  not  be  blockaded  with  a  dank,  drip 
ping  mass  of  shrubbery  set  plumb  against  the  windows, 
keeping  out  light  and  air.  There  shall  be  room  all  round 
it  for  breezes  to  sweep,  and  sunshine  to  sweeten  and  dry 
and  vivify  ;  and  I  would  warn  all  good  souls  who  begin  life 
by  setting  out  two  little  evergreen-trees  within  a  foot  of 
each  of  their  front-windows,  that  these  trees  will  grow  and 
increase  till  their  front-rooms  will  be  brooded  over  by  a 
sombre,  stifling  shadow  fit  only  for  ravens  to  croak  in. 

One  would  think,  by  the  way  some  people  hasten  to  con 
vert  a  very  narrow  front-yard  into  a  dismal  jungle,  that  the 
only  danger  of  our  New  England  climate  was  sunstroke. 
Ah,  in  those  drizzling  months  which  form  at  least  one  half 
of  our  life  here,  what  sullen,  censorious,  uncomfortable,  un 
healthy  thoughts  are  bred  of  living  in  dark,  chilly  rooms, 
behind  such  dripping  thickets  ?  Our  neighbors'  faults  as 
sume  a  deeper  hue,  life  seems  a  dismal  thing,  our  very  re 
ligion  grows  mouldy. 

My  idea  of  a  house  is,  that,  as  far  as  is  consistent  with 
shelter  and  reasonable  privacy,  it  should  give  you  on  first 
entering  an  open,  breezy,  outdoor  freshness  of  sensation. 
Every  window  should  be  a  picture  —  sun  and  trees  and 
clouds  and  green  grass  should  seem  never  to  be  far  from  us. 
"  Our  house  "  may  shade  but  not  darken  us.  "  Our  house  " 
shall  have  bow- windows,  many,  sunny,  and  airy,  —  not  for 
the  purpose  of  being  cleaned  and  shut  up,  but  to  be  open 
and  enjoyed.  There  shall  be  long  verandas  above  and  be 
low,  where  invalids  may  walk  dry-shod,  and  enjoy  open-air 
recreation  in  wettest  weather.  In  short,  I  will  try  to  have 
"  our  house  "  combine  as  far  as  possible  the  sunny,  joyous, 
fresh  life  of  a  gypsy  in  the  fields  and  woods  with  the  quiet 
and  neatness  and  comfort  and  shelter  of  a  roof,  rooms,  floors, 
and  carpets. 

After  heavenly  fire,  I  have  a  word  to  say  of  earthly, 
artificial  fires.  Furnaces,  whether  of  hot  water,  steam,  or 


202  HOUSE  AND  HOME  PAPERS 

hot  air,  are  all  healthy  and  admirable  provisions  for  warm 
ing  our  houses  during  the  eight  or  nine  months  of  our  year 
that  we  must  have  artificial  heat,  if  only,  as  I  have  said, 
fireplaces  keep  up  a  current  of  ventilation. 

The  kitchen-range  with  its  water-back  I  humbly  salute. 
It  is  a  great  throbbing  heart,  and  sends  its  warm  tides  of 
cleansing,  comforting  fluid  all  through  the  house.  One 
could  wish  that  this  friendly  dragon  could  be  in  some  way 
moderated  in  his  appetite  for  coal,  —  he  does  consume  with 
out  mercy,  it  must  be  confessed,  —  but  then  great  is  the 
work  he  has  to  do.  At  any  hour  of  day  or  night,  in  the 
most  distant  part  of  your  house,  you  have  but  to  turn  a 
stop-cock  and  your  red  dragon  sends  you  hot  water  for  your 
need  ;  your  washing-day  becomes  a  mere  play-day ;  your 
pantry  has  its  ever-ready  supply  ;  and  then,  By  a  little  judi 
cious  care  in  arranging  apartments  and  economizing  heat,  a 
range  may  make  two  or  three  chambers  comfortable  in  win 
ter  weather.  A  range  with  a  water-back  is  among  the  must- 
be  's  in  "  our  house." 

Then,  as  to  the  evening  light,  —  I  know  nothing  as  yet 
better  than  gas,  where  it  can  be  had.  I  would  certainly 
not  have  a  house  without  it.  The  great  objection  to  it  is 
the  danger  of  its  escape  through  imperfect  fixtures.  But  it 
must  not  do  this  ;  a  fluid  that  kills  a  tree  or  a  plant  with 
one  breath  must  certainly  be  a  dangerous  ingredient  in  the 
atmosphere,  and  if  admitted  into  houses,  must  be  introduced 
with  every  safeguard. 

There  are  families  living  in  the  country  who  make  their 
own  gas  by  a  very  simple  process.  This  is  worth  an  inquiry 
from  those  who  build.  There  are  also  contrivances  now 
advertised,  with  good  testimonials,  of  domestic  machines 
for  generating  gas,  said  to  be  perfectly  safe,  simple  to  be 
managed,  and  producing  a  light  superior  to  that  of  the  city 
gas  works.  This  also  is  worth  an  inquiry  when  "our 
house  "  is  to  be  in  the  country. 


OUR   HOUSE  203 

And  now  I  come  to  the  next  great  vital  element  for  which 
"  our  house  "  must  provide,  —  WATER.  "  Water,  water, 
everywhere,"  -  —  it  must  be  plentiful,  it  must  be  easy  to  get 
at,  it  must  be  pure.  Our  ancestors  had  some  excellent  ideas 
in  home  living  and  housebuilding.  Their  houses  were, 
generally  speaking,  very  sensibly  contrived,  —  roomy,  airy, 
and  comfortable  ;  but  in  their  water  arrangements  they  had 
little  mercy  on  womankind.  The  well  Avas  out  in  the  yard ; 
and  in  winter  one  must  flounder  through  snow  and  bring  up 
the  ice-bound  bucket,  before  one  could  till  the  teakettle  for 
breakfast.  For  a  sovereign  princess  of  the  republic,  this 
was  hardly  respectful  or  respectable.  Wells  have  come  some 
what  nearer  in  modern  times ;  but  the  idea  of  a  constant 
supply  of  fresh  water  by  the  simple  turning  of  a  stop-cock 
has  not  yet  visited  the  great  body  of  our  houses.  Were  we 
free  to  build  "  our  house  "  just  as  we  wish  it,  there  should 
be  a  bath-room  to  every  two  or  three  inmates,  and  the  hot 
and  cold  water  should  circulate  to  every  chamber. 

Among  our  must-be 's,  we  would  lay  by  a  generous  sum 
for  plumbing.  Let  us  have  our  bath-rooms,  and  our  arrange 
ments  for  cleanliness  and  health  in  kitchen  and  pantry  ; 
and  afterwards  let  the  quality  of  our  lumber  and  the  style 
of  our  finishing  be  according  to  the  sum  we  have  left.  The 
power  to  command  a  warm  bath  in  a  house  at  any  hour  of 
day  or  night  is  better  in  bringing  up  a  family  of  children 
than  any  amount  of  ready  medicine.  In  three  quarters  of 
childish  ailments  the  warm  bath  is  an  almost  immediate 
remedy.  Bad  colds,  incipient  fevers,  rheumatisms,  convul 
sions,  neuralgias  innumerable,  are  washed  off  in  their  first 
beginnings,  and  run  down  the  lead  pipes  into  oblivion. 
Have,  then,  0  friend,  all  the  water  in  your  house  that  you 
can  afford,  and  enlarge  your  ideas  of  the  worth  of  it,  that  you 
may  afford  a  great  deal.  A  bathing-room  is  nothing  to  you 
that  requires  an  hour  of  lifting  and  fire-making  to  prepare 
it  for  use.  The  apparatus  is  too  cumbrous,  —  you  do  not 


204  HOUSE   AND   HOME   PAPERS 

turn  to  it.  But  when  your  chamber  opens  upon  a  neat, 
quiet  little  nook,  and  you  have  only  to  turn  your  stop-cocks 
and  all  is  ready,  your  remedy  is  at  hand,  you  use  it  con 
stantly.  You  are  waked  in  the  night  by  a  scream,  and  find 
little  Tom  sitting  up,  wild  with  burning  fever.  In  three 
minutes  he  is  in  the  bath,  quieted  and  comfortable ;  you  get 
him  back,  cooled  and  tranquil,  to  his  little  crib,  and  in  the 
morning  he  wakes  as  if  nothing  had  happened. 

Why  should  not  so  invaluable  and  simple  a  remedy  for 
disease,  such  a  preservative  of  health,  such  a  comfort,  such 
a  stimulus,  be  considered  as  much  a  matter-of-course  in  a 
house  as  a  kitchen-chimney  ?  At  least  there  should  be  one 
bath-room  always  in  order,  so  arranged  that  all  the  family 
can  have  access  to  it,  if  one  cannot  afford  the  luxury  of 
many. 

A  house  in  which  water  is  universally  and  skillfully  dis 
tributed  is  so  much  easier  to  take  care  of  as  almost  to  verify 
the  saying  of  a  friend,  that  his  house  was  so  contrived  that 
it  did  its  own  work  :  one  had  better  do  without  carpets  on 
the  floors,  without  stuffed  sofas  and  rocking-chairs,  and  se 
cure  this. 

"  Well,  papa,"  said  Marianne,  "  you  have  made  out  all 
your  four  elements  in  your  house,  except  one.  I  can't  im 
agine  what  you  want  of  earth" 

"  I  thought,"  said  Jenny,  "  that  the  less  of  our  common 
mother  we  had  in  our  houses,  the  better  housekeepers  we 
were." 

"  My  dears,"  said  I,  "  we  philosophers  must  give  an 
occasional  dip  into  the  mystical,  and  say  something  appar 
ently  absurd  for  the  purpose  of  explaining  that  we  mean 
nothing  in  particular  by  it.  It  gives  common  people  an 
idea  of  our  sagacity,  to  find  how  clear  we  come  out  of  our 
apparent  contradictions  and  absurdities.  Listen." 


OUR  HOUSE  205 

For  the  fourth  requisite  of  "  our  house, "  EARTH,  let  me 
point  you  to  your  mother's  plant-window,  and  beg  you  to 
remember  the  fact  that  through  our  long,  dreary  winters  we 
are  never  a  month  without  flowers,  and  the  vivid  interest 
which  always  attaches  to  growing  things.  The  perfect 
house,  as  I  conceive  it,  is  to  combine  as  many  of  the  ad 
vantages  of  living  out  of  doors  as  may  be  consistent  with 
warmth  and  shelter,  and  one  of  these  is  the  sympathy  with 
green  and  growing  things.  Plants  are  nearer  in  their  rela 
tions  to  human  health  and  vigor  than  is  often  imagined. 
The  cheerfulness  that  well-kept  plants  impart  to  a  room 
comes  not  merely  from  gratification  of  the  eye,  —  there  is  a 
healthful  exhalation  from  them,  they  are  a  corrective  of  the 
impurities  of  the  atmosphere.  Plants,  too,  are  valuable  as 
tests  of  the  vitality  of  the  atmosphere ;  their  drooping  and 
failure  convey  to  us  information  that  something  is  amiss 
with  it.  A  lady  once  told  me  that  she  could  never  raise 
plants  in  her  parlors  on  account  of  the  gas  and  anthracite 
coal.  I  answered,  "  Are  you  not  afraid  to  live  and  bring 
up  your  children  in  an  atmosphere  which  blights  your 
plants  ?  "  If  the  gas  escape  from  the  pipes,  and  the  red- 
hot  anthracite  coal  or  the  red-hot  air-tight  stove  burns  out 
all  the  vital  part  of  the  air,  so  that  healthy  plants  in  a  few 
days  wither  and  begin  to  drop  their  leaves,  it  is  sign  that  the 
air  must  be  looked  to  and  reformed.  It  is  a  fatal  augury 
for  a  room  that  plants  cannot  be  made  to  thrive  in  it. 
Plants  should  not  turn  pale,  be  long-jointed,  long-leaved, 
and  spindling ;  and  where  they  grow  in  this  way,  we  may 
be  certain  that  there  is  a  want  of  vitality  for  human  beings. 
But  where  plants  appear  as  they  do  in  the  open  air,  with  vig 
orous,  stocky  growth,  and  short-stemmed,  deep-green  leaves, 
we  may  believe  the  conditions  of  that  atmosphere  are 
healthy  for  human  lungs. 

It  is  pleasant  to  see  how  the  custom  of  plant  growing  has 
spread  through  our  country.  In  how  many  farmhouse 


206          HOUSE  AND  HOME  PAPERS 

windows  do  we  see  petunias  and  nasturtiums  vivid  with 
bloom,  while  snows  are  whirling  without,  and  how  much 
brightness  have  those  cheap  enjoyments  shed  on  the  lives 
of  those  who  cared  for  them !  We  do  not  believe  there  is 
a  human  being  who  would  not  become  a  passionate  lover  of 
plants,  if  circumstances  once  made  it  imperative  to  tend 
upon  and  watch  the  growth  of  one.  The  history  of  Picciola 
for  substance  has  been  lived  over  and  over  by  many  a  man 
and  woman  who  once  did  not  know  that  there  was  a  parti 
cle  of  plant-love  in  their  souls.  But  to  the  proper  care  of 
plants  in  pots  there  are  many  hindrances  and  drawbacks. 
The  dust  chokes  the  little  pores  of  their  green  lungs,  and 
they  require  constant  showering;  and  to  carry  all  one's 
plants  to  a  sink  or  porch  for  this  purpose  is  a  labor  which 
many  will  not  endure.  Consequently  plants  often  do  not 
get  a  showering  once  a  month !  We  should  try  to  imitate 
more  closely  the  action  of  Mother  Nature,  who  washes  every 
green  child  of  hers  nightly  with  dews,  which  lie  glittering 
on  its  leaves  till  morning. 

"  Yes,  there  it  is!"  said  Jenny.  "I  think  I  could 
manage  writh  plants,  if  it  were  not  for  this  eternal  shower 
ing  and  washing  they  seem  to  require  to  keep  them  fresh. 
They  are  always  tempting  one  to  spatter  the  carpet  and 
surrounding  furniture,  which  are  not  equally  benefited  by 
the  libation." 

"  It  is  partly  for  that  very  reason,"  I  replied,  "  that  the 
plan  of  '  our  house '  provides  for  the  introduction  of  Mother 
Earth,  as  you  will  see." 

A  perfect  house,  according  to  my  idea,  should  always  in 
clude  in  it  a  little  compartment  where  plants  can  be  kept, 
can  be  watered,  can  be  defended  from  the  dust,  and  have 
the  sunshine  and  all  the  conditions  of  growth. 

People  have  generally  supposed  a  conservatory  to  be  one 


OUR   HOUSE  207 

of  the  last  trappings  of  wealth,  —  something  not  to  be 
thought  of  for  those  in  modest  circumstances.  But  is  this 
so  ?  You  have  a  bow-window  in  your  parlor.  Leave  out 
the  flooring,  fill  the  space  with  rich  earth,  close  it  from  the 
parlor  by  glass  doors,  and  you  have  room  for  enough  plants 
and  flowers  to  keep  you  gay  and  happy  all  winter.  If  on 
the  south  side,  where  the  sunbeams  have  power,  it  requires 
no  heat  but  that  which  warms  the  parlor ;  and  the  comfort 
of  it  is  incalculable,  and  the  expense  a  mere  trifle  greater 
than  that  of  the  bow-window  alone. 

In  larger  houses  a  larger  space  might  be  appropriated  in 
this  way.  We  will  not  call  it  a  conservatory,  because  that 
name  suggests  ideas  of  gardeners,  and  mysteries  of  culture 
and  rare  plants,  which  bring  all  sorts  of  care  and  expense 
in  their  train.  We  would  rather  call  it  a  greenery,  a  room 
floored  with  earth,  with  glass  sides  to  admit  the  sun,  —  and 
let  it  open  on  as  many  other  rooms  of  the  house  as  possible. 

Why  should  not  the  dining-room  and  parlor  be  all  win 
ter  connected  by  a  spot  of  green  and  flowers,  with  plants, 
mosses,  and  ferns  for  the  shadowy  portions,  and  such  simple 
blooms  as  petunias  and  nasturtiums  garlanding  the  sunny 
portion  near  the  windows  ?  If  near  the  water-works,  this 
greenery  might  be  enlivened  by  the  play  of  a  fountain,  whose 
constant  spray  would  give  that  softness  to  the  air  which  is 
so  often  burned  away  by  the  dry  heat  of  the  furnace. 

"  And  do  you  really  think,  papa,  that  houses  built  in 
this  way  are  a  practical  result  to  be  aimed  at  ?  "  said  Jenny. 
"  To  me  it  seems  like  a  dream  of  the  Alhambra."  I 

"  Yet  I  happen  to  have  seen  real  people  in  our  day  living 
in  just  such  a  house,"  said  I.  "I  could  point  you,  this 
very  hour,  to  a  cottage,  which  in  style  of  building  is  the 
plainest  possible,  which  unites  many  of  the  best  ideas  of  a 
true  house.  My  dear,  can  you  sketch  the  ground  plan  of 
that  house  we  saw  in  Brighton  ?  " 


208 


HOUSE   AND    HOME    PAPERS 


"  Here  it  is,"  said  my  wife,  after  a  few  dashes  with  her 
pencil,  "  an  inexpensive  house,  yet  one  of  the  pleasantest  I 
ever  saw." 


Ib^NTAllN 

LINING- 

PANTKT 

ROOM 

'                          * 

"WASH 

0         ROOM 

CARLOER 

: 

P\ 

HAII 

T  KrrcHEN 
dl 

T,  , 

L 
I 

r,  China-closet,    p,  Passage,    rf,  Kitchen-closet. 

"  This  cottage,  which  might,  at  the  rate  of  prices  before 
the  war,  have  been  built  for  five  thousand  dollars,  has  many 
of  the  requirements  which  I  seek  for  a  house.  It  has  two 
stories,  and  a  tier  of  very  pleasant  attic-rooms,  two  bathing- 
rooms,  and  the  water  carried  into  each  story.  The  parlor 
and  dining-room  both  look  into  a  little  bower,  where  a  foun 
tain  is  ever  playing  into  a  little  marble  basin,  and  which  all 
the  year  through  has  its  green  and  bloom.  It  is  heated  sim 
ply  from  the  furnace  by  a  register,  like  any  other  room  of 
the  house,  and  requires  no  more  care  than  a  delicate  woman 
could  easily  give.  The  brightness  and  cheerfulness  it  brings 
during  our  long,  dreary  winters  is  incredible." 

But  one  caution  is  necessary  in  all  such  appendages.  The 
earth  must  be  thoroughly  underdrained  to  prevent  the  vapors 
of  stagnant  water,  and  have  a  large  admixture  of  broken 
charcoal  to  obviate  the  consequences  of  vegetable  decompo 
sition.  Great  care  must  be  taken  that  there  be  no  leaves 
left  to  fall  and  decay  on  the  ground,  since  vegetable  exhala 
tions  poison  the  air.  With  these  precautions  such  a  plot 
will  soften  and  purify  the  air  of  a  house. 


OUR   HOUSE  209 

Where  the  means  do  not  allow  even  so  small  a  conserva 
tory,  a  recessed  window  might  be  fitted  with  a  deep  box, 
which  should  have  a  drain-pipe  at  the  bottom,  and  a  thick 
layer  of  broken  charcoal  and  gravel,  with  a  mixture  of  fine 
wood-soil  and  sand,  for  the  top  stratum.  Here  ivies  may  be 
planted,  which  will  run  and  twine  and  strike  their  little  ten 
drils  here  and  there,  and  give  the  room  in  time  the  aspect  of  a 
bower  ;  the  various  greenhouse  nasturtiums  will  make  winter 
gorgeous  with  blossoms.  In  windows  unblessed  by  sunshine 
—  and,  alas  !  such  are  many  —  one  can  cultivate  ferns  and 
mosses  ;  the  winter-growing  ferns,  of  which  there  are  many 
varieties,  can  be  mixed  with  mosses  and  woodland  flowers. 

Early  in  February,  when  the  cheerless  frosts  of  winter 
seem  most  wearisome,  the  common  blue  violet,  wood  anemone, 
hepatica,  or  rock-columbine,  if  planted  in  this  way,  will 
begin  to  bloom.  The  common  partridge-berry,  with  its  bril 
liant  scarlet  fruit  and  dark-green  leaves,  will  also  grow  finely 
in  such  situations,  and  have  a  beautiful  effect.  These  things 
require  daily  showering  to  keep  them  fresh,  and  the  moisture 
arising  from  them  will  soften  and  freshen  the  too  dry  air  of 
heated  winter  rooms. 

Thus  I  have  been  through  my  four  essential  elements  in 
house-building,  —  air,  fire,  water,  and  earth.  I  would  pro 
vide  for  these  before  anything  else.  After  they  are  secured, 
I  would  gratify  my  taste  and  fancy  as  far  as  possible  in  other 
ways.  I  quite  agree  with  Bob  in  hating  commonplace  houses, 
and  longing  for  some  little  bit  of  architectural  effect !  and  I 
grieve  profoundly  that  every  step  in  that  direction  must 
cost  so  much.  I  have  also  a  taste  for  niceness  of  finish. 
I  have  no  objection  to  silver-plated  door-locks  and  hinges, 
none  to  windows  which  are  an  entire  plate  of  clear  glass. 
I  congratulate  neighbors  who  are  so  fortunate  as  to  be  able 
to  get  them  ;  and  after  I  have  put  all  the  essentials  into  a 
house,  I  would  have  these  too,  if  I  had  the  means. 


210          HOUSE  AND  HOME  PAPERS 

But  if  all  my  wood  work  were  to  be  without  groove  or 
moulding,  if  my  mantels  were  to  be  of  simple  wood,  if  my 
doors  were  all  to  be  machine-made,  and  my  lumber  of  the 
second  quality,  I  would  have  my  bathrooms,  my  conserva 
tory,  my  sunny  bow-windows,  and  my  perfect  ventilation  ; 
and  my  house  would  then  be  so  pleasant,  and  every  one  in 
it  in  such  a  cheerful  mood,  that  it  would  verily  seem  to  be 
ceiled  with  cedar. 

Speaking  of  ceiling  with  cedar,  I  have  one  thing  more  to 
say.  We  Americans  have  a  country  abounding  in  beautiful 
timber,  of  whose  beauties  we  know  nothing,  on  account  of 
the  pernicious  and  stupid  habit  of  covering  it  with  white 
paint. 

The  celebrated  zebra  wood  with  its  golden  stripes  cannot 
exceed  in  quaint  beauty  the  grain  of  unpainted  chestnut, 
prepared  simply  with  a  coat  or  two  of  oil.  The  butternut 
has  a  rich  golden  brown,  the  very  darling  color  of  painters, 
a  shade  so  rich,  and  grain  so  beautiful,  that  it  is  of  itself  as 
charming  to  look  at  as  a  rich  picture.  The  black-walnut, 
with  its  heavy  depth  of  tone,  works  in  well  as  an  adjunct ; 
and  as  to  oak,  what  can  we  say  enough  of  its  quaint  and 
many  shadings  ?  Even  common  pine,  which  has  been  con 
sidered  not  decent  to  look  upon  till  hastily  shrouded  in  a 
friendly  blanket  of  white  paint,  has,  when  oiled  and  var 
nished,  the  beauty  of  satin-wood.  The  second  quality  of 
pine,  which  has  what  are  called  shakes  in  it,  under  this 
mode  of  treatment  often  shows  clouds  and  veins  equal  in 
beauty  to  the  choicest  woods.  The  cost  of  such  a  finish  is 
greatly  less  than  that  of  the  old  method  ;  and  it  saves  those 
days  and  weeks  of  cleaning  which  are  demanded  by  white 
paint,  while  its  general  tone  is  softer  and  more  harmonious. 
Experiments  in  color  may  be  tried  in  the  combinations  of 
these  woods,  which  at  small  expense  produce  the  most  charm 
ing  effects. 

As    to    paper  hangings,  we    are    proud  to  say  that  our 


OUR   HOUSE  211 

American  manufacturers  now  furnish  all  that  can  be  desired. 
There  are  some  branches  of  design  where  artistic,  ingenious 
France  must  still  excel  us  ;  but  whoso  has  a  house  to  fit  up, 
let  him  first  look  at  what  his  own  country  has  to  show,  and 
he  will  be  astonished. 

There  is  one  topic  in  housebuilding  on  which  I  would 
add  a  few  words.  The  difficulty  of  procuring  and  keeping 
good  servants,  which  must  long  be  one  of  our  chief  domestic 
troubles,  warns  us  so  to  arrange  our  houses  that  we  shall 
need  as  few  as  possible.  There  is  the  greatest  conceivable 
difference  in  the  planning  and  building  of  houses  as  to  the 
amount  of  work  which  will  be  necessary  to  keep  them  in 
respectable  condition.  Some  houses  require  a  perfect  staff 
of  housemaids  :  there  are  plated  hinges  to  be  rubbed,  paint 
to  be  cleaned,  with  intricacies  of  moulding  and  carving 
which  daily  consume  hours  of  dusting  to  preserve  them 
from  a  slovenly  look.  Simple  finish,  unpainted  wood,  a 
general  distribution  of  water  through  the  dwelling,  will 
enable  a  very  large  house  to  be  cared  for  by  one  pair  of 
hands,  and  yet  maintain  a  creditable  appearance. 

In  kitchens  one  servant  may  perform  the  work  of  two  by 
a  close  packing  of  all  the  conveniences  for  cooking  and  such 
arrangements  as  shall  save  time  and  steps.  Washing-day 
may  be  divested  of  its  terrors  by  suitable  provisions  for 
water,  hot  and  cold ;  by  wringers,  which  save  at  once  the 
strength  of  the  linen  and  of  the  laundress ;  and  by  drying- 
closets  connected  with  ranges,  where  articles  can  in  a  few 
moments  be  perfectly  dried.  These,  with  the  use  of  a  small 
mangle,  such  as  is  now  common  in  America,  reduce  the 
labors  of  the  laundry  one  half. 

There  are  many  more  things  which  might  be  said  of  "  our 
house,"  and  Christopher  may,  perhaps,  find  some  other 
opportunity  to  say  them.  For  the  present  his  pen  is  tired 
and  ceaseth. 


212  HOUSE  AND   HOME   PAPERS 

XII 
HOME    RELIGION 

It  was  Sunday  evening,  and  our  little  circle  were  con 
vened  by  my  study  fireside,  where  a  crackling  hickory  fire 
proclaimed  the  fall  of  the  year  to  be  coming  on,  and  cold 
weather  impending.  Sunday  evenings,  my  married  boys 
and  girls  are  fond  of  coming  home  and  gathering  round  the 
old  hearthstone,  and  "  making  believe "  that  they  are 
children  again.  We  get  out  the  old-fashioned  music-books, 
and  sing  old  hymns  to  very  old  tunes,  and  my  wife  and  her 
matron  daughters  talk  about  the  babies  in  the  intervals  ; 
and  we  discourse  of  the  sermon,  and  of  the  choir,  and  all 
the  general  outworks  of  good  pious  things  which  Sunday 
suggests. 

"  Papa,"  said  Marianne,  "  you  are  closing  up  your  '  House 
and  Home  Papers,'  are  you  not  ?  " 

"Yes, — I  am  come  to  the  last  one,  for  this  year  at 
least." 

"  My  dear,"  said  my  wife,  "  there  is  one  subject  you 
have  n't  touched  on  yet ;  you  ought  not  to  close  the  year 
without  it ;  no  house  and  home  can  be  complete  without 
Religion :  you  should  write  a  paper  on  Home  Religion." 

My  wife,  as  you  may  have  seen  in  these  papers,  is  an 
old-fashioned  woman,  something  of  a  conservative.  I  am, 
I  confess,  rather  given  to  progress  and  speculation  ;  but  I 
feel  always  as  if  I  were  going  on  in  these  ways  with  a 
string  round  my  waist,  and  my  wife's  hand  steadily  pulling 
me  back  into  the  old  paths.  My  wife  is  a  steady,  Bible- 
reading,  Sabbath-keeping  woman,  cherishing  the  memory  of 
her  fathers,  and  loving  to  do  as  they  did,  —  believing,  for 
the  most  part,  that  the  paths  well  beaten  by  righteous  feet 
are  safest,  even  though  much  walking  therein  has  worn 


HOME   RELIGION  213 

away  the  grass  and  flowers.  Nevertheless,  she  has  an 
indulgent  ear  for  all  that  gives  promise  of  bettering  any 
body  or  anything,  and  therefore  is  not  severe  on  any  new 
methods  that  may  arise  in  our  progressive  days  of  accom 
plishing  old  good  objects. 

"  There  must  be  a  home  religion,"  said  my  wife. 

11 1  believe  in  home  religion,"  said  Bob  Stephens,  — 
"  but  not  in  the  outward  show  of  it.  The  best  sort  of  re 
ligion  is  that  which  one  keeps  at  the  bottom  of  his  heart, 
and  which  goes  up  thence  quietly  through  all  his  actions, 
and  not  the  kind  that  comes  through  a  certain  routine  of 
forms  and  ceremonies.  Do  you  suppose  family  prayers, 
now,  and  a  blessing  at  meals,  make  people  any  better  ?  " 

"  Depend  upon  it,  Robert,"  said  my  wife,  —  she  always 
calls  him  Robert  on  Sunday  evenings,  —  "  depend  upon  it, 
we  are  not  so  very  much  wiser  than  our  fathers  were,  that 
we  need  depart  from  their  good  old  ways.  Of  course  I 
would  have  religion  in  the  heart,  and  spreading  quietly 
through  the  life ;  but  does  this  interfere  with  those  out 
ward,  daily  acts  of  respect  and  duty  which  we  owe  to  our 
Creator  ?  It  is  too  much  the  slang  of  our  day  to  decry 
forms,  and  to  exalt  the  excellency  of  the  spirit  in  opposition 
to  them;  but  tell  me,  are  you  satisfied  with  friendship  that 
has  none  of  the  outward  forms  of  friendship,  or  love  that 
has  none  of  the  outward  forms  of  love  ?  Are  you  satisfied 
of  the  existence  of  a  sentiment  that  has  rto  outward  mode  of 
expression  ?  Even  the  old  heathen  had  their  pieties  ;  they 
would  not  begin  a  feast  without  a  libation  to  their  divinities, 
and  there  was  a  shrine  in  every  well-regulated  house  for 
household  gods." 

"  The  trouble  with  all  these  things,"  said  Bob,  "  is  that 
they  get  to  be  mere  forms.  I  never  could  see  that  family 
worship  amounted  to  much  more  in  most  families." 

"  The  outward  expression  of  all  good  things  is  apt  to 
degenerate  into  mere  form,"  said  I.  "  The  outward  expres- 


214  HOUSE  AND  HOME  PAPERS 

sion  of  social  good  feeling  becomes  a  mere  form ;  but  for 
that  reason  must  we  meet  each  other  like  oxen  ?  not  say, 
'  Good  morning/  or  *  Good  evening/  or  1 1  am  happy  to  see 
you'  ?  Must  we  never  use  any  of  the  forms  of  mutual 
good  will,  except  in  those  moments  when  we  are  excited  by 
a  real,  present  emotion  ?  What  would  become  of  society  ? 
Forms  are,  so  to  speak,  a  daguerreotype  of  a  past  good  feel 
ing,  meant  to  take  and  keep  the  impression  of  it  when  it  is 
gone.  Our  best  and  most  inspired  moments  are  crystallized 
in  them  ;  and  even  when  the  spirit  that  created  them  is 
gone,  they  help  to  bring  it  back.  Every  one  must  be  con 
scious  that  the  use  of  the  forms  of  social  benevolence,  even 
towards  those  who  are  personally  unpleasant  to  us,  tends 
to  ameliorate  prejudices.  We  see  a  man  entering  our  door 
who  is  a  weary  bore,  but  we  use  with  him  those  forms  of 
civility  which  society  prescribes,  and  feel  far  kinder  to 
him  than  if  we  had  shut  the  door  in  his  face  and  said, 
'  Go  along,  you  tiresome  fellow  !  '  Now  why  does  not  this 
very  obvious  philosophy  apply  to  better  and  higher  feelings  ? 
The  forms  of  religion  are  as  much  more  necessary  than  the 
forms  of  politeness  and  social  good  will  as  religion  is  more 
important  than  all  other  things.'7 

"  Besides,"  said  my  wife,  "  a  form  of  worship  kept  up 
from  year  to  year  in  a  family  —  the  assembling  of  parents 
and  children  for  a  few  sacred  moments  each  day,  though 
it  may  be  a  form  many  times,  especially  in  the  gay  and 
thoughtless  hours  of  life  —  often  becomes  invested  with 
deep  sacredness  in  times  of  trouble,  or  in  those  crises  that 
rouse  our  deeper  feelings.  In  sickness,  in  bereavement,  in 
separation,  the  daily  prayer  at  home  has  a  sacred  and  heal 
ing  power.  Then  we  remember  the  scattered  and  wander 
ing  ones ;  and  the  scattered  and  wandering  think  tenderly 
of  that  hour  when  they  know  they  are  remembered.  I 
know,  when  I  was  a  young  girl,  I  was  often  thoughtless 
and  careless  about  family  prayers  ;  but  now  that  my  father 


HOME   RELIGION  215 

and  mother  are  gone  forever,  there  is  nothing  I  recall  more 
often.  I  remember  the  great  old  Family  Bible,  the  hymn- 
book,  the  chair  where  father  used  to  sit.  I  see  him  as  he 
looked  bending  over  that  Bible  more  than  in  any  other 
way  ;  and  expressions  and  sentences  in  his  prayers  which 
fell  unheeded  on  my  ears  in  those  days  have  often  come 
back  to  me  like  comforting  angels.  We  are  not  aware  of 
the  influence  things  are  having  on  us  till  we  have  left  them 
far  behind  in  years.  When  we  have  summered  and  win 
tered  them,  and  look  back  on  them  from  changed  times  and 
other  days,  we  find  that  they  were  making  their  mark  upon 
us,  though  we  knew  it  not." 

"  I  have  often  admired,"  said  I,  "  the  stateliness  and 
regularity  of  family  worship  in  good  old  families  in  England, 
—  the  servants,  guests,  and  children  all  assembled,  —  the 
reading  of  the  Scriptures  and  the  daily  prayers  by  the 
master  or  mistress  of  the  family,  ending  with  the  united 
repetition  of  the  Lord's  Prayer  by  all." 

"  No  such  assemblage  is  possible  in  our  country,"  said 
Bob.  "  Our  servants  are  for  the  most  part  Roman  Catho 
lics,  and  forbidden  by  their  religion  to  join  with  us  in  acts 
of  worship." 

"The  greater  the  pity,"  said  I.  "It  is  a  pity  that  all 
Christians  who  can  conscientiously  repeat  the  Apostles' 
Creed  and  the  Lord's  Prayer  together  should  for  any  reason 
be  forbidden  to  do  so.  It  would  do  more  to  harmonize 
our  families,  and  promote  good  feeling  between  masters  and 
servants,  to  meet  once  a  day  on  the  religious  ground  com 
mon  to  both,  than  many  sermons  on  reciprocal  duties." 

"  But,  while  the  case  is  so,"  said  Marianne,  "  we  can't 
help  it.  'Our  servants  cannot  unite  with  us  j  our  daily 
prayers  are  something  forbidden  to  them." 

"  We  cannot  in  this  country,"  said  I,  "  give  to  family 
prayer  that  solemn  stateliness  which  it  has  in  a  country 
where  religion  is  a  civil  institution,  and  masters  and  ser- 


HOUSE   AND   HOME   PAPERS 

vants,  as  a  matter  of  course,  belong  to  one  church.  Our 
prayers  must  resemble  more  a  private  interview  with  a  father 
than  a  solemn  act  of  homage  to  a  king.  They  must  be 
more  intimate  and  domestic.  The  hour  of  family  devotion 
should  be  the  children's  hour,  —  held  dear  as  the  interval 
when  the  busy  father  drops  his  business  and  cares,  and, 
like  Jesus  of  old,  takes  the  little  ones  in  his  arms  and 
blesses  them.  The  child  should  remember  it  as  the  time 
when  the  father  always  seemed  most  accessible  and  lov 
ing.  The  old  family  worship  of  New  England  lacked  this 
character  of  domesticity  and  intimacy,  —  it  was  stately  and 
formal,  distant  and  cold  ;  but,  whatever  were  its  defects,  I 
cannot  think  it  an  improvement  to  leave  it  out  altogether, 
as  too  many  good  sort  of  people  in  our  day  are  doing.  There 
may  be  practical  religion  where  its  outward  daily  forms  are 
omitted,  but  there  is  assuredly  no  more  of  it  for  the  omis 
sion.  No  man  loves  God  and  his  neighbor  less,  is  a  less 
honest  and  good  man,  for  daily  prayers  in  his  household,  — 
the  chances  are  quite  the  other  way  ;  and  if  the  spirit  of 
love  rules  the  family  hour,  it  may  prove  the  source  and 
spring  of  all  that  is  good  through  the  day.  It  seems  to  be 
a  solemn  duty  in  the  parents  thus  to  make  the  Invisible 
Fatherhood  real  to  their  children,  who  can  receive  this  idea 
at  first  only  through  outward  forms  and  observances.  The 
little  one  thus  learns  that  his  father  has  a  Father  in  heaven, 
and  that  the  earthly  life  he  is  living  is  only  a  sacrament 
and  emblem,  — a  type  of  the  eternal  life  which  infolds  it, 
and  of  more  lasting  relations  there.  Whether,  therefore,  it 
be  the  silent  grace  and  silent  prayer  of  the  Friends,  or  the 
form  of  prayer  of  ritual  churches,  or  the  extemporaneous 
outpouring  of  those  whose  habits  and  taste  lead  them  to 
extempore  prayer,  in  one  of  these  ways  there  should  be 
daily  outward  and  visible  acts^  of  worship  in  every  family." 
"  Well,  now,"  said  Bob,  "  about  this  old  question  of 
Sunday-keeping,  Marianne  and  I  are  much  divided.  I  am 


HOME   RELIGION  217 

always  for  doing  something  that  she  thinks  isn't  the 
thing." 

"  Well,  you  see/7  said  Marianne,  "  Bob  is  always  talking 
against  our  old  Puritan  fathers,  and  saying  all  manner  of 
hard  tilings  about  them.  He  seems  to  think  that  all  their 
ways  and  doings  must  of  course  have  been  absurd.  For  my 
part,  I  don't  think  we  are  in  any  danger  of  being  too  strict 
about  anything.  It  appears  to  me  that  in  this  country 
there  is  a  general  tendency  to  let  all  sorts  of  old  forms  and 
observances  float  down-stream,  and  yet  nobody  seems  quite 
to  have  made  up  his  mind  what  shall  come  next." 

"The  fact  is,"  said  I,  "that  we  realize  very  fully  all  the 
objections  and  difficulties  of  the  experiments  in  living  that 
we  have  tried ;  but  the  difficulties  in  others  that  we  are 
intending  to  try  have  not  yet  come  to  light.  The  Puritan 
Sabbath  had  great  and  very  obvious  evils.  Its  wearisome 
restraints  and  over-strictness  cast  a  gloom  on  religion,  and 
arrayed  against  the  day  itself  the  active  prejudices  that  now 
are  undermining  it  and  threatening  its  extinction.  But  it 
had  great  merits  and  virtues,  and  produced  effects  on  society 
that  we  cannot  well  afford  to  dispense  with.  The  clearing 
of  a  whole  day  from  all  possibilities  of  labor  and  amusement 
necessarily  produced  a  grave  and  thoughtful  people,  and  a 
democratic  republic  can  be  carried  on  by  no  other.  In 
lands  which  have  Sabbaths  of  mere  amusement,  mere  gala 
days,  republics  rise  and  fall  as  quick  as  children's  card- 
houses  ;  and  the  reason  is,  they  are  built  by  those  whose 
political  and  religious  education  has  been  childish.  The 
common  people  of  Europe  have  been  sedulously  nursed  on 
amusements  by  the  reigning  powers,  to  keep  them  from 
meddling  with  serious  matters ;  their  religion  has  been 
sensuous  and  sentimental,  and  their  Sabbaths  thoughtless 
holidays.  The  common  people  of  New  England  are  edu 
cated  to  think,  to  reason,  to  examine  all  questions  of  poli 
tics  and  religion  for  themselves  j  and  one  deeply  thought- 


218  HOUSE   AND   HOME    PAPERS 

ful  day  every  week  baptizes  and  strengthens  their  reflective 
and  reasoning  faculties.  The  Sunday-schools  of  Paris  are 
whirligigs  where  Young  France  rides  round  and  round  on 
little  hobby-horses  till  his  brain  spins  even  faster  than  Na 
ture  made  it  to  spin;  and  when  he  grows  up,  his  political 
experiments  are  as  whirligig  as  his  Sunday  education.  If  I 
were  to  choose  between  the  Sabbath  of  France  and  the  old 
Puritan  Sabbath,  I  should  hold  up  both  hands  for  the  latter, 
with  all  its  objectionable  features." 

"  Well,"  said  my  wife,  "  cannot  we  contrive  to  retain 
all  that  is  really  valuable  of  the  Sabbath,  and  to  ameliorate 
and  smooth  away  what  is  forbidding  ?  " 

"That  is  the  problem  of  our  day,"  said  I.  "  We  do  not 
want  the  Sabbath  of  Continental  Europe  :  it  does  not  suit 
democratic  institutions  ;  it  cannot  be  made  even  a  quiet  or 
a  safe  day,  except  by  means  of  that  ever-present  armed 
police  that  exists  there.  If  the  Sabbath  of  America  is 
simply  to  be  a  universal  loafing,  picnicking,  dining-out  day, 
as  it  is  now  with  all  our  foreign  population,  we  shall  need 
what  they  have  in  Europe,  the  gendarmes  at  every  turn,  to 
protect  the  fruit  on  our  trees  and  the  melons  in  our  fields. 
People  who  live  a  little  out  from  great  cities  see  enough, 
and  more  than  enough,  of  this  sort  of  Sabbath-keeping,  with 
our  loose  American  police. 

"  The  fact  is,  our  system  of  government  was  organized  to 
go  by  moral  influences  as  much  as  mills  by  water,  and  Sun 
day  was  the  great  day  for  concentrating  these  influences  and 
bringing  them  to  bear ;  and  we  might  just  as  well  break  down 
all  the  dams  and  let  out  all  the  water  of  the  Lowell  mills, 
and  expect  still  to  work  the  looms,  as  to  expect  to  work  our 
laws  and  constitution  with  European  notions  of  religion. 

"It  is  true  the  Puritan  Sabbath  had  its  disagreeable 
points.  So  have  the  laws  of  Nature.  They  are  of  a  most 
uncomfortable  sternness  and  rigidity;  yet  for  all  that,  we 
would  hardly  join  in  a  petition  to  have  them  repealed,  or 


HOME   EELIGION  219 

made  wavering  and  uncertain  for  human  convenience.  We 
can  bend  to  them  in  a  thousand  ways,  and  live  very  com 
fortably  under  them." 

"  But,"  said  Bob,  "  Sabbath-keeping  is  the  iron  rod  of 
bigots  ;  they  don't  allow  a  man  any  liberty  of  his  own. 
One  says  it 's  wicked  to  write  a  letter  Sunday ;  another 
holds  that  you  must  read  no  book  but  the  Bible  •  and  a 
third  is  scandalized  if  you  take  a  walk,  ever  so  quietly,  in 
the  fields.  There  are  all  sorts  of  quips  and  turns.  We 
may  fasten  things  with  pins  of  a  Sunday,  but  it 's  wicked 
to  fasten  with  needle  and  thread,  and  so  on,  and  so  on  ; 
and  each  one,  planting  himself  on  his  own  individual  mode 
of  keeping  Sunday,  points  his  guns  and  frowns  severely 
over  the  battlements  on  his  neighbors  whose  opinions  and 
practice  are  different  from  his." 

"  Yet,"  said  I,  "  Sabbath  days  are  expressly  mentioned 
by  Saint  Paul  as  among  those  things  concerning  which  no 
man  should  judge  another.  It  seems  to  me  that  the  error 
as  regards  the  Puritan  Sabbath  was  in  representing  it,  not 
as  a  gift  from  God  to  man,  but  as  a  tribute  of  man  to  God. 
Hence  all  these  hagglings  and  nice  questions  and  exactions 
to  the  uttermost  farthing.  The  holy  time  must  be  weighed 
and  measured.  It  must  begin  at  twelve  o'clock  of  one 
night,  and  end  at  twelve  o'clock  of  another ;  and  from  be 
ginning  to  end,  the  mind  must  be  kept  in  a  state  of  tension 
by  the  effort  not  to  think  any  of  its  usual  thoughts  or  do 
any  of  its  usual  works.  The  fact  is,  that  the  metaphysical, 
defining,  hair-splitting  mind  of  New  England,  turning  its 
whole  powers  on  this  one  bit  of  ritual,  this  one  only  day  of 
divine  service,  which  was  left  of  all  the  feasts  and  fasts  of 
the  old  churches,  made  of  it  a  thing  straiter  and  stricter 
than  ever  the  old  Jews  dreamed  of. 

"  The  old  Jewish  Sabbath  entered  only  into  the  physi 
cal  region,  merely  enjoining  cessation  from  physical  toil. 
'  Thou  shalt  not  labor  nor  do  any  work,9  covered  the  whole 


220  HOUSE   AND   HOME   PAPERS 

ground.  In  other  respects  than  this  it  was  a  joyful  festi 
val,  resembling,  in  the  mode  of  keeping  it,  the  Christmas 
of  the  modern  church.  It  was  a  day  of  social  hilarity,  — 
the  Jewish  law  strictly  forbidding  mourning  and  gloom 
during  festivals.  The  people  were  commanded  on  feast 
days  to  rejoice  before  the  Lord  their  God  with  all  their 
might.  We  fancy  there  were  no  houses  where  children 
were  afraid  to  laugh,  where  the  voice  of  social  cheerfulness 
quavered  away  in  terror  lest  it  should  awake  a  wrathful 
God.  The  Jewish  Sabbath  was  instituted,  in  the  absence 
of  printing,  of  books,  and  of  all  the  advantages  of  literature, 
to  be  the  great  means  of  preserving  sacred  history,  — a  day 
cleared  from  all  possibility  of  other  employment  than  social 
and  family  communion,  when  the  heads  of  families  and  the 
elders  of  tribes  might  instruct  the  young  in  those  religious 
traditions  which  have  thus  come  down  to  us. 

"  The  Christian  Sabbath  is  meant  to  supply  the  same 
moral  need  in  that  improved  and  higher  state  of  society 
which  Christianity  introduced.  Thus  it  was  changed  from 
the  day  representing  the  creation  of  the  world  to  the  resur 
rection  day  of  Him  who  came  to  make  all  things  new.  The 
Jewish  Sabbath  was  buried  with  Christ  in  the  sepulchre, 
and  arose  with  Him,  not  a  Jewish,  but  a  Christian  festi 
val,  still  holding  in  itself  that  provision  for  man's  needs 
which  the  old  institution  possessed,  but  with  a  wider  and 
more  generous  freedom  of  application.  It  was  given  to 
the  Christian  world  as  a  day  of  rest,  of  refreshment,  of  hope 
and  joy,  and  of  worship.  The  manner  of  making  it  such 
a  day  was  left  open  and  free  to  the  needs  and  convenience 
of  the  varying  circumstances  and  characters  of  those  for 
whose  benefit  it  was  instituted." 

"  Well,"  said  Bob,  "  don't  you  think  there  is  a  deal  of 
nonsense  about  Sabbath-keeping  ?  " 

"  There  is  a  deal  of  nonsense  about  everything  human 
beings  have  to  deal  with,"  I  said. 


HOME   RELIGION  221 

"  And,"  said  Marianne,  "  how  to  find  out  what  is  non 
sense  ?  "  — 

"  By  clear  conceptions,"  said  I,  "  of  what  the  day  is  for. 
I  should  define  the  Sabbath  as  a  divine  and  fatherly  gift  to 
man,  —  a  day  expressly  set  apart  for  the  cultivation  of  his 
moral  nature.  Its  object  is  not  merely  physical  rest  and 
recreation,  but  moral  improvement.  The  former  are  proper 
to  the  day  only  so  far  as  they  are  subservient  to  the  latter. 
The  whole  human  race  have  the  conscious  need  of  being 
made  better,  purer,  and  more  spiritual  ;  the  whole  human 
race  have  one  common  danger  of  sinking  to  a  mere  animal 
life  under  the  pressure  of  labor  or  in  the  dissipations  of 
pleasure ;  and  of  the  whole  human  race  the  proverb  holds 
good,  that  what  may  be  done  any  time  is  done  at  no  time. 
Hence  the  Heavenly  Father  appoints  one  day  as  a  special 
season  for  the  culture  of  man's  highest  faculties.  Accord 
ingly,  whatever  ways  and  practices  interfere  with  the  pur 
pose  of  the  Sabbath  as  a  day  of  worship  and  moral  culture 
should  be  avoided,  and  all  family  arrangements  for  the  day 
should  be  made  with  reference  thereto." 

"  Cold  dinners  on  Sunday,  for  example,"  said  Bob. 
"  Marianne  holds  these  as  prime  articles  of  faith." 

"  Yes,  —  they  doubtless  are  most  worthy  and  merciful, 
in  giving  to  the  poor  cook  one  day  she  may  call  her  own, 
and  rest  from  the  heat  of  range  and  cooking-stove.  For 
the  same  reason,  I  would  suspend  as  far  as  possible  all  trav 
eling,  and  all  public  labor,  on  Sunday.  The  hundreds  of 
hands  that  these  things  require  to  carry  them  on  are  the 
hands  of  human  beings,  whose  right  to  this  merciful  pause 
of  rest  is  as  clear  as  their  humanity.  Let  them  have  their 
day  to  look  upward." 

"  But  the  little  ones,"  said  my  oldest  matron  daughter, 
who  had  not  as  yet  spoken,  —  "  they  are  the  problem.  Oh, 
this  weary  labor  of  making  children  keep  Sunday  !  If  I  try 
it,  I  have  no  rest  at  all  myself.  If  I  must  talk  to  them  or 


222          HOUSE  AND  HOME  PAPERS 

read  to  them  to  keep  them  from  play,  my  Sabbath  becomes 
my  hardest  working  day." 

"And,  pray,  what  commandment  of  the  Bible  ever  said 
children  should  not  play  on  Sunday  ?  "  said  I.  "  We  are 
forbidden  to  work,  and  we  see  the  reason  why  ;  but  lambs 
frisk  and  robins  sing  on  Sunday  ;  and  little  children,  who 
are  as  yet  more  than  half  animals,  must  not  be  made  to 
keep  the  day  in  the  manner  proper  to  our  more  developed 
faculties.  As  much  cheerful,  attractive  religious  instruction 
as  they  can  bear  without  weariness  may  be  given,  and  then 
they  may  simply  be  restrained  from  disturbing  others.  Say 
to  the  little  one,  i  This  day  we  have  noble  and  beautiful 
things  to  think  of  that  interest  us  deeply  :  you  are  a  child ; 
you  cannot  read  and  think  and  enjoy  such  things  as  much 
as  we  can;  you  may  play  softly  and  quietly,  and  remember 
not  to  make  a  disturbance.'  I  would  take  a  child  to  public 
worship  at  least  once  of  a  Sunday  ;  it  forms  a  good  habit  in 
him.  If  the  sermon  be  long  and  unintelligible,  there  are 
the  little  Sabbath-school  books  in  every  child's  hands ;  and 
while  the  grown  people  are  getting  what  they  understand, 
who  shall  forbid  a  child's  getting  what  is  suited  to  him  in 
a  way  that  interests  him  and  disturbs  nobody  ?  The  Sab 
bath-school  is  the  child's  church  and  happily  it  is  yearly 
becoming  a  more  and  more  attractive  institution.  I  approve 
the  custom  of  those  who  beautify  the  Sabbath  school-room 
with  plants,  flowers,  and  pictures,  thus  making  it  an  attrac 
tive  place  to  the  childish  eye.  The  more  this  custom  pre 
vails,  the  more  charming  in  after  years  will  be  the  memo 
ries  of  Sunday. 

"  It  is  most  especially  to  be  desired  that  the  whole  air 
and  aspect  of  the  day  should  be  one  of  cheerfulness.  Even 
the  new  dresses,  new  bonnets,  and  new  shoes,  in  which  chil 
dren  delight  of  a  Sunday,  should  not  be  despised.  They 
have  their  value  in  marking  the  day  as  a  festival ;  and  it  is 
better  for  the  child  to  long  for  Sunday,  for  the  sake  of  his 


HOME   RELIGION  223 

little  new  shoes,  than  that  he  should  hate  and  dread  it  as  a 
period  of  wearisome  restraint.  All  the  latitude  should  be 
given  to  children  that  can  be,  consistently  with  fixing  in 
their  minds  the  idea  of  a  sacred  season.  I  would  rather 
that  the  atmosphere  of  the  day  should  resemble  that  of  a 
weekly  Thanksgiving  than  that  it  should  make  its  mark  on 
the  tender  mind  only  by  the  memory  of  deprivations  and 
restrictions." 

"  Well,"  said  Bob,  "  here 'a  Marianne  always  breaking 
her  heart  about  my  reading  on  Sunday.  Now  I  hold  that 
what  is  bad  on  Sunday  is  bad  on  Monday,  —  and  what  is 
good  on  Monday  is  good  on  Sunday." 

"  We  cannot  abridge  other  people's  liberty,"  said  I. 
"  The  generous,  confiding  spirit  of  Christianity  has  imposed 
not  a  single  restriction  upon  us  in  reference  to  Sunday. 
The  day  is  put  at  our  disposal  as  a  good  Father  hands  a 
piece  of  money  to  his  child,  —  '  There  it  is  ;  take  it  and 
spend  it  well.7  The  child  knows  from  his  father's  charac 
ter  what  he  means  by  spending  it  well,  but  he  is  left  free 
to  use  his  own  judgment  as  to  the  mode. 

"  If  a  man  conscientiously  feels  that  reading  of  this  or 
that  description  is  the  best  for  him  as  regards  his  moral 
training  and  improvement,  let  him  pursue  it,  and  let  no  man 
judge  him.  It  is  difficult,  with  the  varying  temperaments 
of  men,  to  decide  what  are  or  are  not  religious  books.  One 
man  is  more  religiously  impressed  by  the  reading  of  history 
or  astronomy  than  he  would  be  by  reading  a  sermon.  There 
may  be  overwrought  and  wearied  states  of  the  brain  and 
nerves  which  require  and  make  proper  the  diversions  of 
light  literature  ;  and  if  so,  let  it  be  used.  The  mind  must 
have  its  recreations  as  well  as  the  body." 

"  But  for  children  and  young  people,"  said  my  daughter, 
—  "  would  you  let  them  read  novels  on  Sunday  ?  " 

"  That  is  exactly  like  asking,  Would  you  let  them  talk 
with  people  on  Sunday  ?  Now  people  are  different ;  it  de- 


224  HOUSE   AND   HOME   PAPERS 

pends,  therefore,  on  who  they  are.  Some  are  trifling  and 
flighty,  some  are  positively  bad-principled,  some  are  alto 
gether  good  in  their  influence.  So  of  the  class  of  books 
called  novels.  Some  are  merely  frivolous,  some  are  abso 
lutely  noxious  and  dangerous,  others  again  are  written  with 
a  strong  moral  and  religious  purpose,  and,  being  vivid  and 
interesting,  produce  far  more  religious  effect  on  the  mind 
than  dull  treatises  and  sermons.  The  parables  of  Christ 
sufficiently  establish  the  point  that  there  is  no  inherent  ob 
jection  to  the  use  of  fiction  in  teaching  religious  truth. 
Good  religious  fiction,  thoughtfully  read,  may  be  quite  as 
profitable  as  any  other  reading." 

"  But  don't  you  think,"  said  Marianne,  "  that  there  is 
danger  in  too  much  fiction  ?  " 

"  Yes,"  said  I.  "  But  the  chief  danger  of  all  that  class 
of  reading  is  its  easiness,  and  the  indolent,  careless  mental 
habits  it  induces.  A  great  deal  of  the  reading  of  young 
people  on  all  days  is  really  reading  to  no  purpose,  its  object 
being  merely  present  amusement.  It  is  a  listless  yielding 
of  the  mind  to  be  washed  over  by  a  stream  which  leaves  no 
fertilizing  properties,  and  carries  away  by  constant  wear  the 
good  soil  of  thought.  I  should  try  to  establish  a  barrier 
against  this  kind  of  reading,  not  only  on  Sunday,  but  on 
Monday,  on  Tuesday,  and  on  all  days.  Instead,  therefore, 
of  objecting  to  any  particular  class  of  books  for  Sunday 
reading,  I  should  say  in  general  that  reading  merely  for 
pastime,  without  any  moral  aim,  is  the  thing  to  be  guarded 
against.  That  which  inspires  no  thought,  no  purpose,  which 
steals  away  all  our  strength  and  energy,  and  makes  the  Sab 
bath  a  day  of  dreams,  is  the  reading  I  would  object  to. 

"  So  of  music.  I  do  not  see  the  propriety  of  confining 
one's  self  to  technical  sacred  music.  Any  grave,  solemn, 
thoughtful,  or  pathetic  music  has  a  proper  relation  to  our 
higher  spiritual  nature,  whether  it  be  printed  in  a  church 
service-book  or  on  secular  sheets.  On  me,  for  example, 


HOME   RELIGION  225 

Beethoven's  Sonatas  have  a  far  more  deeply  religious  influ 
ence  than  much  that  has  religious  names  and  words.  Music 
is  to  he  judged  of  by  its  effects." 

u  Well,"  said  Bob,  t(  if  Sunday  is  given  for  our  own  in 
dividual  improvement,  I  for  one  should  not  go  to  church. 
I  think  I  get  a  great  deal  more  good  in  staying  at  home  and 
reading." 

"  There  are  two  considerations  to  be  taken  into  account 
in  reference  to  this  matter  of  church-going,"  I  replied. 
"  One  relates  to  our  duty  as  members  of  society  in  keeping 
up  the  influence  of  the  Sabbath,  and  causing  it  to  be  re 
spected  in  the  community ;  the  other,  to  the  proper  dispo 
sition  of  our  time  for  our  own  moral  improvement.  As  mem 
bers  of  the  community,  we  should  go  to  church,  and  do  all 
in  our  power  to  support  the  outward  ordinances  of  religion. 
If  a  conscientious  man  makes  up  his  mind  that  Sunday  is  a 
day  for  outward  acts  of  worship  and  reverence,  he  should 
do  his  own  part  as  an  individual  towards  sustaining  these 
observances.  Even  though  he  may  have  such  mental  and 
moral  resources  that  as  an  individual  he  could  gain  much 
more  in  solitude  than  in  a  congregation,  still  he  owes  to  the 
congregation  the  influence  of  his  presence  and  sympathy. 
But  I  have  never  yet  seen  the  man,  however  finely  gifted 
morally  and  intellectually,  whom  I  thought  in  the  long  run 
a  gainer  in  either  of  these  respects  by  the  neglect  of  public 
worship.  I  have  seen  many  who  in  their  pride  kept  aloof 
from  the  sympathies  and  communion  of  their  brethren,  who 
lost  strength  morally,  and  deteriorated  in  ways  that  made 
themselves  painfully  felt.  Sunday  is  apt  in  such  cases  to 
degenerate  into  a  day  of  mere  mental  idleness  and  reverie, 
or  to  become  a  sort  of  waste-paper  box  for  scraps,  odds  and 
ends  of  secular  affairs. 

"  As  to  those  very  good  people  —  and  many  such  there 
are  —  who  go  straight  on  with  the  work  of  life  on  Sunday, 
on  the  plea  that  <•  to  labor  is  to  pray,'  I  simply  think  they 


226  HOUSE  AND  HOME  PAPERS 

are  mistaken.  In  the  first  place,  to  labor  is  not  the  same 
thing  as  to  pray.  It  may  sometimes  be  as  good  a  thing  to 
do,  and  in  some  cases  even  a  better  thing  ;  but  it  is  not  the 
same  thing.  A  man  might  as  well  never  write  a  letter  to 
his  wife,  on  the  plea  that  making  money  for  her  is  writing 
to  her.  It  may  possibly  be  quite  as  great  a  proof  of  love  to 
work  for  a  wife  as  to  write  to  her,  but  few  wives  would  not 
say  that  both  were  not  better  than  either  alone.  Further 
more,  there  is  no  doubt  that  the  intervention  of  one  day  of 
spiritual  rest  and  aspiration  so  refreshes  a  man's  whole  na 
ture,  and  oils  the  many  wheels  of  existence,  that  he  who 
allows  himself  a  weekly  Sabbath  does  more  work  in  the 
course  of  his  life  for  the  omission  of  work  on  that  day. 

"  A  young  student  in  a  French  college,  where  the  exami 
nations  are  rigidly  severe,  found  by  experience  that  he  suc 
ceeded  best  in  his  examination  by  allowing  one  day  of  entire 
rest  just  before  it.  His  brain  and  nervous  system  refreshed 
in  this  way  carried  him  through  the  work  better  than  if 
taxed  to  the  last  moment.  There  are  men  transacting  a 
large  and  complicated  business  who  can  testify  to  the  same 
influence  from  the  repose  of  the  Sabbath. 

"  I  believe  those  Christian  people  who  from  conscience 
and  principle  turn  their  thoughts  most  entirely  out  of  the 
current  of  worldly  cares  on  Sunday  fulfill  unconsciously  a 
great  law  of  health ;  and  that,  whether  their  moral  nature 
be  thereby  advanced  or  not,  their  brain  will  work  more 
healthfully  and  actively  for  it,  even  in  physical  and  worldly 
matters.  It  is  because  the  Sabbath  thus  harmonizes  the 
physical  and  moral  laws  of  our  being  that  the  injunction 
concerning  it  is  placed  among  the  ten  great  commandments, 
each  of  which  represents  some  one  of  the  immutable  needs 
of  humanity." 

"  There  is  yet  another  point  of  family  religion  that  ought 
to  be  thought  of,"  said  my  wife  :  "  I  mean  the  customs  of 
mourning.  If  there  is  anything  that  ought  to  distinguish 


HOME  RELIGION  227 

Christian  families  from  Pagans,  it  should  be  their  way  of 
looking  at  and  meeting  those  inevitable  events  that  must 
from  time  to  time  break  the  family  chain.  It  seems  to  be 
the  peculiarity  of  Christianity  to  shed  hope  on  such  events. 
And  yet  it  seems  to  me  as  if  it  were  the  very  intention  of 
many  of  the  customs  of  society  to  add  tenfold  to  their  gloom 
and  horror,  —  such  swathings  of  black  crape,  such  funereal 
mu filings  of  every  pleasant  object,  such  darkening  of  rooms, 
and  such  seclusion  from  society  and  giving  up  to  bitter 
thoughts  and  lamentation.  How  can  little  children  that 
look  on  such  things  believe  that  there  is  a  particle  of  truth 
in  all  they  hear  about  the  joyous  and  comforting  doctrines 
which  the  Bible  holds  forth  for  such  times  ?  " 

"  That  subject  is  a  difficult  one/7  I  rejoined.  Nature 
seems  to  indicate  a  propriety  in  some  outward  expressions 
of  grief  when  we  lose  our  friends.  All  nations  agree  in 
these  demonstrations.  In  a  certain  degree  they  are  sooth 
ing  to  sorrow  ;  they  are  the  language  of  external  life  made 
to  correspond  to  the  internal.  Wearing  mourning  has  its 
advantages.  It  is  a  protection  to  the  feelings  of  the  wearer, 
for  whom  it  procures  sympathetic  and  tender  consideration ; 
it  saves  grief  from  many  a  hard  jostle  in  the  ways  of  life  ; 
it  prevents  the  necessity  of  many  a  trying  explanation,  and 
is  the  ready  apology  for  many  an  omission  of  those  tasks  to 
which  sorrow  is  unequal.  For  all  these  reasons  I  never  could 
join  the  crusade  which  some  seem  disposed  to  wage  against 
it.  Mourning,  however,  ought  not  to  be  continued  for 
years.  Its  uses  are  more  for  the  first  few  months  of  sorrow, 
when  it  serves  the  mourner  as  a  safeguard  from  intrusion, 
insuring  quiet  and  leisure  in  which  to  reunite  the  broken 
threads  of  life,  and  to  gather  strength  for  a  return  to  its 
duties.  But  to  wear  mourning  garments  and  forego  society 
for  two  or  three  years  after  the  loss  of  any  friend,  however 
dear,  I  cannot  but  regard  as  a  morbid,  unhealthy  nursing 
of  sorrow,  unworthy  of  a  Christian." 


228  HOUSE   AND   HOME   PAPERS 

"  And  yet,"  said  my  wife,  "  to  such  an  unhealthy  degree 
does  this  custom  prevail,  that  I  have  actually  known  young 
girls  who  have  never  worn  any  other  dress  than  mourning, 
and  consequently  never  been  into  society,  during  the  entire 
period  of  their  girlhood.  First,  the  death  of  a  father  ne 
cessitated  three  years  of  funereal  garments  and  abandon 
ment  of  social  relations  ;  then  the  death  of  a  brother  added 
two  years  more ;  and  before  that  mourning  was  well  ended, 
another  of  a  wide  circle  of  relatives  being  taken,  the 
habitual  seclusion  was  still  protracted.  What  must  a  child 
think  of  the  Christian  doctrine  of  life  and  death  who  has 
never  seen  life  except  through  black  crape  ?  We  profess 
to  believe  in  a  better  life  to  which  the  departed  good  are 
called,  —  to  believe  in  the  shortness  of  our  separation, 
the  certainty  of  reunion,  and  that  all  these  events  are 
arranged  in  all  their  relations  by  an  infinite  tenderness 
which  cannot  err.  Surely,  Christian  funerals  too  often 
seem  to  say  that  affliction  '  cometh  of  the  dust,'  and  not 
from  above." 

"  But,"  said  Bob,  "  after  all,  death  is  a  horror  ;  you  can 
make  nothing  less  of  it.  You  can't  smooth  it  over,  nor 
dress  it  with  flowers  ;  it  is  what  Nature  shudders  at." 

"It  is  precisely  for  this  reason,"  said  I,  "that  Christians 
should  avoid  those  customs  which  aggravate  and  intensify 
this  natural  dread.  Why  overpower  the  senses  with  doleful 
and  funereal  images  in  the  hour  of  weakness  and  bereave 
ment,  when  the  soul  needs  all  her  force  to  rise  above  the 
gloom  of  earth,  and  to  realize  the  mysteries  of  faith  ? 
Why  shut  the  friendly  sunshine  from  the  mourner's  room  ? 
Why  muffle  in  a  white  shroud  every  picture  that  speaks  a 
cheerful  household  word  to  the  eye  ?  Why  make  a  house 
look  stiff  and  ghastly  and  cold  as  a  corpse  ?  In  some  of 
our  cities,  on  the  occurrence  of  a  death  in  the  family,  all 
the  shutters  on  the  street  are  closed  and  tied  with  black 
crape,  and  so  remain  for  months.  What  an  oppressive 


HOME   RELIGION  229 

gloom  must  this  bring  on  a  house !  how  like  the  very 
shadow  of  death !  It  is  enlisting  the  nerves  and  the  senses 
against  our  religion,  and  making  more  difficult  the  great 
duty  of  returning  to  life  and  its  interests.  I  would  have 
flowers  and  sunshine  in  the  deserted  rooms,  and  make  them 
symbolical  of  the  cheerful  mansions  above,  to  which  our 
beloved  ones  are  gone.  Home  ought  to  be  so  religiously 
cheerful,  so  penetrated  by  the  life  of  love  and  hope  and 
Christian  faith,  that  the  other  world  may  be  made  real  by 
it.  Our  home  life  should  be  a  type  of  the  higher  life. 
Our  home  should  be  so  sanctified,  its  joys  and  its  sorrows 
so  baptized  and  hallowed,  that  it  shall  not  be  sacrilegious 
to  think  of  heaven  as  a  higher  form  of  the  same  thing,  — 
a  Father's  house  in  the  better  country,  whose  mansions  are 
many,  whose  love  is  perfect,  whose  joy  is  eternal." 


THE  CHIMNEY-COKNER 
I 

WHAT    WILL    YOU    DO    WITH    HER?     OB,    THE    WOMAN 
QUESTION 

"  WELL,  what  will  you  do  with  her  ?  "  said  I  to  my  wife. 

My  wife  had  just  come  down  from  an  interview  with  a 
pale,  faded-looking  young  woman  in  rusty  black  attire,  who 
had  called  upon  me  on  the  very  common  supposition  that  I 
was  an  editor  of  the  "  Atlantic  Monthly." 

By  the  by,  this  is  a  mistake  that  brings  me,  Christopher 
Crowfield,  many  letters  that  do  not  belong  to  me,  and  which 
might  with  equal  pertinency  be  addressed,  "  To  the  Man  in 
the  Moon."  Yet  these  letters  often  make  my  heart  ache, 
—  they  speak  so  of  people  who  strive  and  sorrow  and  want 
help ;  and  it  is  hard  to  be  called  on  in  plaintive  tones  for 
help  which  you  know  it  is  perfectly  impossible  for  you  to 
give. 

For  instance,  you  get  a  letter  in  a  delicate  hand,  setting 
forth  the  old  distress,  —  she  is  poor,  and  she  has  looking  to 
her  for  support  those  that  are  poorer  and  more  helpless  than 
herself :  she  has  tried  sewing,  but  can  make  little  at  it ; 
tried  teaching,  but  cannot  now  get  a  school,  —  all  places 
being  filled,  and  more  than  filled  ;  at  last  has  tried  litera 
ture,  and  written  some  little  things,  of  which  she  sends  you 
a  modest  specimen,  and  wants  your  opinion  whether  she  can 
gain  her  living  by  writing.  You  run  over  the  articles,  and 
perceive  at  a  glance  that  there  is  no  kind  of  hope  or  use  in 


232  THE   CHIMNEY-CORNER 

her  trying  to  do  anything  at  literature  ;  and  then  you  ask 
yourself  mentally,  "  What  is  to  be  done  with  her  ?  What 
can  she  do  ?  " 

Such  was  the  application  that  had  come  to  me  this  morn 
ing,  —  only,  instead  of  by  note,  it  came,  as  I  have  said,  in 
the  person  of  the  applicant,  a  thin,  delicate,  consumptive- 
looking  being,  wearing  that  rusty  mourning  which  speaks 
sadly  at  once  of  heart  bereavement  and  material  poverty. 

My  usual  course  is  to  turn  such  cases  over  to  Mrs.  Crow- 
field  ;  and  it  is  to  be  confessed  that  this  worthy  woman 
spends  a  large  portion  of  her  time,  and  wears  out  an  extraor 
dinary  amount  of  shoe-leather,  in  performing  the  duties  of 
a  self-constituted  intelligence  office.  Talk  of  giving  money 
to  the  poor !  what  is  that,  compared  to  giving  sympathy, 
thought,  time,  taking  their  burdens  upon  you,  sharing  their 
perplexities  ?  They  who  are  able  to  buy  off  every  applica 
tion  at  the  door  of  their  heart  with  a  five  or  ten  dollar  bill 
are  those  who  free  themselves  at  least  expense. 

My  wife  had  communicated  to  our  friend,  in  the  gentlest 
tones  and  in  the  blandest  manner,  that  her  poor  little  pieces, 
however  interesting  to  her  own  household  circle,  had  nothing 
in  them  wherewith  to  enable  her  to  make  her  way  in  the 
thronged  and  crowded  thoroughfare  of  letters,  — that  they 
had  no  more  strength  or  adaptation  to  win  bread  for  her 
than  a  broken- winged  butterfly  to  draw  a  plough  ;  and  it 
took  some  resolution  in  the  background  of  her  tenderness  to 
make  the  poor  applicant  entirely  certain  of  this.  In  cases 
like  this,  absolute  certainty  is  the  very  greatest,  the  only 
true  kindness. 

It  was  grievous,  my  wife  said,  to  see  the  discouraged 
shade  which  passed  over  her  thin,  tremulous  features  when 
this  certainty  forced  itself  upon  her.  It  is  hard,  when  sink 
ing  in  the  waves,  to  see  the  frail  bush  at  which  the  hand 
clutches  uprooted ;  hard,  when  alone  in  the  crowded  thor 
oughfare  of  travel,  to  have  one's  last  bank-note  declared  a 


WHAT   WILL   YOU   DO   WITH   HER  233 

counterfeit.  I  knew  I  should  not  be  able  to  see  her  face, 
under  the  shade  of  this  disappointment ;  and  so,  coward  that 
I  was,  I  turned  this  trouble,  where  I  have  turned  so  many 
others,  upon  my  wife. 

"  Well,  what  shall  we  do  with  her  ?  "  said  I. 

"  I  really  don't  know,'7  said  my  wife  musingly. 

"  Do  you  think  we  could  get  that  school  in  Taunton  for 
her  ?  " 

"  Impossible  ;  Mr.  Herbert  told  me  he  had  already  twelve 
applicants  for  it." 

"  Could  n't  you  get  her  plain  sewing  ?  Is  she  handy 
with  her  needle  ?  " 

"  She  has  tried  that,  but  it  brings  on  a  pain  in  her  side, 
and  cough ;  and  the  doctor  has  told  her  it  will  not  do  for 
her  to  confine  herself." 

"  How  is  her  handwriting  ?  Does  she  write  a  good 
hand  ?  " 

"  Only  passable." 

"  Because,"  said  I,  te  I  was  thinking  if  I  could  get  Ste.ele 
and  Simpson  to  give  her  law  papers  to  copy." 

"  They  have  more  copyists  than  they  need  now  ;  and,  in 
fact,  this  woman  does  not  write  the  sort  of  hand  at  all  that 
would  enable  her  to  get  on  as  a  copyist." 

"  Well,"  said  I,  turning  uneasily  in  my  chair,  and  at  last 
hitting  on  a  bright  masculine  expedient,  "  I  '11  tell  you 
what  must  be  done.  She  must  get  married." 

"  My  dear,"  said  my  wife,  "  marrying  for  a  living  is  the 
very  hardest  way  a  woman  can  take  to  get  it.  Even  mar 
rying  for  love  often  turns  out  badly  enough.  Witness  poor 
Jane." 

Jane  was  one  of  the  large  number  of  people  whom  it 
seemed  my  wife's  fortune  to  carry  through  life  on  her  back. 
She  was  a  pretty,  smiling,  pleasing  daughter  of  Erin,  who 
had  been  in  our  family  originally  as  nursery-maid.  I 
had  been  greatly  pleased  in  watching  a  little  idyllic  affair 


234  THE   CHIMNEY-CORNER 

growing  up  between  her  and  a  joyous,  good-natured  young 
Irishman,  to  whom  at  last  we  married  her.  Mike  soon 
after,  however,  took  to  drinking  and  unsteady  courses  ;  and 
the  result  has  been  to  Jane  only  a  yearly  baby,  with  poor 
health  and  no  money. 

"  In  fact,"  said  my  wife,  "  if  Jane  had  only  kept  single, 
she  could  have  made  her  own  way  well  enough,  and  might 
have  now  been  in  good  health  and  had  a  pretty  sum  in  the 
savings  bank.  As  it  is,  I  must  carry  not  only  her,  but  her 
three  children,  on  my  back." 

"  You  ought  to  drop  her,  my  dear.  You  really  ought 
not  to  burden  yourself  with  other  people's  affairs  as  you 
do,"  said  I  inconsistently. 

"  How  can  I  drop  her  ?  Can  I  help  knowing  that  she 
is  poor  and  suffering  ?  And  if  I  drop  her,  who  will  take 
her  up  ?  " 

Now  there  is  a  way  of  getting  rid  of  cases  of  this  kind, 
spoken  of  in  a  quaint  old  book,  which  occurred  strongly  to 
me  at  this  moment :  — 

"  If  a  brother  or  sister  be  naked,  and  destitute  of  daily 
food,  and  one  of  you  say  unto  them,  (  Depart  in  peace,  be 
ye  warmed  and  filled,'  notwithstanding  ye  give  them  not 
those  things  which  are  needful  to  the  body,  what  doth  it 
profit  ?  " 

I  must  confess,  notwithstanding  the  strong  point  of  the 
closing  question,  I  looked  with  an  evil  eye  of  longing  on 
this  very  easy  way  of  disposing  of  such  cases.  A  few  sym 
pathizing  words,  a  few  expressions  of  hope  that  I  did  not 
feel,  a  line  written  to  turn  the  case  into  somebody  else's 
hands,  —  any  expedient,  in  fact,  to  hide  the  longing  eyes 
and  imploring  hands  from  my  sight,  —  was  what  my  carnal 
nature  at  this  moment  greatly  craved. 

"  Besides,"  said  my  wife,  resuming  the  thread  of  her 
thoughts  in  regard  to  the  subject  just  now  before  us,  "  as 
to  marriage,  it's  out  of  the  question  at  present  for  this  poor 


WHAT   WILL   YOU   DO   WITH   HER  235 

child  ;  for  the  man  she  loved  and  would  have  married  lies 
low  in  one  of  the  graves  before  Richmond.  It  ?s  a  sad 
story,  —  one  of  a  thousand  like  it.  She  brightened  for  a 
few  moments,  and  looked  almost  handsome,  when  she  spoke 
of  his  bravery  and  goodness.  Her  father  and  lover  have 
both  died  in  this  war.  Her  only  brother  has  returned  from 
it  a  broken-down  cripple,  and  she  has  him  and  her  poor  old 
mother  to  care  for,  and  so  she  seeks  work.  I  told  her  to 
come  again  to-morrow,  and  I  would  look  about  for  her  a 
little  to-day." 

"  Let  me  see,  how  many  are  now  down  on  your  list  to 
be  looked  about  for,  Mrs.  Crowfield  ?  —  some  twelve  or 
thirteen,  are  there  not  ?  You  've  got  Tom's  sister  disposed 
of  finally,  I  hope,  —  that  's  a  comfort  !  " 

"  Well,  I  'm  sorry  to  say  she  came  back  on  my  hands 
yesterday,"  said  my  wife  patiently.  "  She  is  a  foolish 
young  thing,  and  said  she  didn't  like  living  out  in  the 
country.  I  'm  sorry,  because  the  Morrises  are  an  excellent 
family,  and  she  might  have  had  a  life  home  there,  if  she 
had  only  been  steady,  and  chosen  to  behave  herself  properly. 
But  yesterday  I  found  her  back  on  her  mother's  hands 
again  ;  and  the  poor  woman  told  me  that  the  dear  child 
never  could  bear  to  be  separated  from  her,  and  that  she 
had  n't  the  heart  to  send  her  back." 

"  And  in  short,"  said  I,  "  she  gave  you  notice  that  you 
must  provide  for  Miss  O'Connor  in  some  more  agreeable 
way.  Cross  that  name  oft'  your  list,  at  any  rate.  That 
woman  and  girl  need  a  few  hard  raps  in  the  school  of  expe 
rience  before  you  can  do  anything  for  them." 

"  I  think  I  shall,"  said  my  long-suffering  wife  ;  "  but  it  7s 
a  pity  to  see  a  young  thing  put  in  the  direct  road  to  ruin." 

"  It  is  one  of  the  inevitables,"said  I,  "  and  we  must  save 
our  strength  for  those  that  are  willing  to  help  themselves." 

"  What 's  all  this  talk  about  ?  "  said  Bob,  coming  in 
upon  us  rather  brusquely. 


236  THE    CHIMNEY-CORNER 

"  Oh,  as  usual,  the  old  question/'  said  I,  —  "  <  What 's 
to  be  done  with  her  ?  ' 

"  Well,"  said  Bob,  "  it 's  exactly  what  I  ?ve  come  to  talk 
with  mother  about.  Since  she  keeps  a  distressed  women's 
agency  office,  I  've  come  to  consult  her  about  Marianne. 
That  woman  will  die  before  six  months  are  out,  a  victim  to 
high  civilization  and  the  Paddies.  There  we  are,  twelve 
miles  out  from  Boston,  in  a  country  villa  so  convenient  that 
every  part  of  it  might  almost  do  its  own  work,  —  every 
thing  arranged  in  the  most  convenient,  contiguous,  self-ad 
justing,  self-acting,  patent- right,  perfective  manner,  —  and 
yet  I  tell  you  Marianne  will  die  of  that  house.  It  will 
yet  be  recorded  on  her  tombstone,  'Died  of  conveniences.' 
For  myself,  what  I  languish  for  is  a  log-cabin,  with  a  bed 
in  one  corner,  a  trundle-bed  underneath  for  the  children,  a 
fireplace  only  six  feet  off,  a  table,  four  chairs,  one  kettle, 
a  coffee-pot,  and  a  tin  baker,  —  that 's  all.  I  lived  deli- 
ciously  in  an  establishment  of  this  kind  last  summer,  when 
I  was  up  at  Lake  Superior  ;  and  I  am  convinced,  if  I  could 
move  Marianne  into  it  at  once,  that  she  would  become  a 
healthy  and  a  happy  woman.  Her  life  is  smothered  out 
of  her  with  comforts ;  we  have  too  many  rooms,  too  many 
carpets,  Too  many  vases  and  knickknacks,  too  much  china 
and  silver  ;  she  has  too  many  laces  and  dresses  and  bon 
nets  ;  the  children  all  have  too  many  clothes  :  in  fact,  to 
put  it  scripturally,  our  riches  are  corrupted,  our  garments 
are  moth-eaten,  our  gold  and  our  silver  is  cankered,  and,  in 
short,  Marianne  is  sick  in  bed,  and  I  have  come  to  the 
agency  office  for  distressed  women  to  take  you  out  to  attend 
to  her. 

"  The  fact  is,"  continued  Bob,  "  that  since  our  cook  mar 
ried,  and  Alice  went  to  California,  there  seems  to  be  no 
possibility  of  putting  our  domestic  cabinet  upon  any  perma 
nent  basis.  The  number  of  female  persons  that  have  been 
through  our  house,  and  the  ravages  they  have  wrought  on 


WHAT   WILL   YOU   DO   WITH   HER  237 

it  for  the  last  six  months,  pass  belief.  I  had  yesterday  a 
bill  of  sixty  dollars'  plumbing  to  pay  for  damages  of  various 
kinds  which  had  had  to  be  repaired  in  our  very  convenient 
water-works  ;  and  the  blame  of  each  particular  one  had  been 
bandied  like  a  shuttlecock  among  our  three  household  divini 
ties.  Biddy  privately  assured  my  wife  that  Kate  was  in 
the  habit  of  emptying  dustpans  of  rubbish  into  the  main 
drain  from  the  chambers,  and  washing  any  little  extra  bits 
down  through  the  bowls ;  and.  in  fact,  when  one  of  the 
bathing-room  bowls  had  overflowed  so  as  to  damage  the 
frescoes  below,  my  wife,  with  great  delicacy  and  precaution, 
interrogated  Kate  as  to  whether  she  had  followed  her  in 
structions  in  the  care  of  the  water-pipes.  Of  course  she 
protested  the  most  immaculate  care  and  circumspection. 
'  Sure,  and  she  knew  how  careful  one  ought  to  be,  and 
was  n't  of  the  likes  of  thim  as  would  n't  mind  what  throuble 
they  made,  —  like  Biddy,  who  would  throw  trash  and  hair 
in  the  pipes,  and  niver  listen  to  her  tellin'  ;  sure,  and 
had  n't  she  broken  the  pipes  in  the  kitchen,  and  lost  the 
stoppers,  as  it  was  a  shame  to  see  in  a  Christian  house  ?  ' 
Ann,  the  third  girl,  being  privately  questioned,  blamed  Biddy 
on  Monday,  and  Kate  on  Tuesday ;  on  Wednesday,  however, 
she  exonerated  both  ;  but  on  Thursday,  being  in  a  high 
quarrel  with  both,  she  departed,  accusing  them  severally, 
not  only  of  all  the  evil  practices  aforesaid,  but  of  lying  and 
stealing,  and  all  other  miscellaneous  wickednesses  that  came 
to  hand.  Whereat  the  two  thus  accused  rushed  in,  be 
wailing  themselves  and  cursing  Ann  in  alternate  strophes, 
averring  that  she  had  given  the  baby  laudanum,  and,  tak 
ing  it  out  riding,  had  stopped  for  hours  with  it  in  a  filthy 
lane  where  the  scarlet  fever  was  said  to  be  rife,  —  in  short, 
made  so  fearful  a  picture  that  Marianne  gave  up  the  child's 
life  at  once,  and  has  taken  to  her  bed.  I  have  endeavored 
all  I  could  to  quiet  her,  by  telling  her  that  the  scarlet  fever 
story  was  probably  an  extemporaneous  work  of  fiction,  got 


238  THE   CHIMNEY-CORNER 

up  to  gratify  the  Hibernian  anger  at  Ann ;  and  that  it 
was  n't  in  the  least  worth  while  to  believe  one  thing  more 
than  another  from  the  fact  that  any  of  the  tribe  said  it. 
But  she  refuses  to  be  comforted,  and  is  so  Utopian  as  to  lie 
there  crying,  '  Oh,  if  I  only  could  get  one  that  I  could  trust, 
—  one  that  would  really  speak  the  truth  to  me,  —  one  that 
I  might  know  really  went  where  she  said  she  went,  and 
really  did  as  she  said  she  did !  '  To  have  to  live  so,  she 
says,  and  bring  up  little  children  with  those  she  can't  trust 
out  of  her  sight,  whose  word  is  good  for  nothing,  —  to  feel 
that  her  beautiful  house  and  her  lovely  things  are  all  going 
to  rack  and  ruin,  and  she  can't  take  care  of  them,  and  can't 
see  where  or  when  or  how  the  mischief  is  done,  —  in  short, 
the  poor  child  talks  as  women  do  who  are  violently  attacked 
with  housekeeping  fever  tending  to  congestion  of  the  brain. 
She  actually  yesterday  told  me  that  she  wished,  on  the 
whole,  she  never  had  got  married,  which  I  take  to  be  the 
most  positive  indication  of  mental  alienation." 

"  Here,"  said  I,  "  we  behold  at  this  moment  two  women 
dying  for  the  want  of  what  they  can  mutually  give  one 
another,  —  each  having  a  supply  of  what  the  other  needs, 
but  held  back  by  certain  invisible  cobwebs,  slight  but  strong, 
from  coming  to  each  other's  assistance.  Marianne  has 
money  enough,  but  she  wants  a  helper  in  her  family,  such 
as  all  her  money  has  been  hitherto  unable  to  buy  ;  and 
here,  close  at  hand,  is  a  woman  who  wants  home  shelter, 
healthy,  varied,  active,  cheerful  labor,  with  nourishing  food, 
kind  care,  and  good  wages.  What  hinders  these  women 
from  rushing  to  the  help  of  one  another,  just  as  two  drops 
of  water  on  a  leaf  rush  together  and  make  one  ?  Nothing 
but  a  miserable  prejudice,  —  but  a  prejudice  so  strong  that 
women  will  starve  in  any  other  mode  of  life  rather  than 
accept  competency  and  comfort  in  this." 

"  You  don't  mean,"  said  my  wife,  "  to  propose  that  our 
protegee  should  go  to  Marianne  as  a  servant  ?  " 


WHAT  WILL  YOU  DO  WITH  HER        239 

"  I  do  say  it  would  be  the  best  thing  for  her  to  do,  — 
the  only  opening  that  I  see,  and  a  very  good  one,  too,  it  is. 
Just  look  at  it.  Her  bare  living  at  this  moment  cannot 
cost  her  less  than  five  or  six  dollars  a  week,  —  everything 
at  the  present  time  is  so  very  dear  in  the  city.  Now  by 
what  possible  calling  open  to  her  capacity  can  she  pay  her 
board  and  washing,  fuel  and  lights,  and  clear  a  hundred  and 
some  odd  dollars  a  year  ?  She  could  not  do  it  as  a  district 
school  teacher;  she  certainly  cannot,  with  her  feeble  health, 
do  it  by  plain  sewing  ;  she  could  not  do  it  as  a  copyist.  A 
robust  woman  might  go  into  a  factory  and  earn  more  ;  but 
factory  work  is  unintermitted,  twelve  hours  daily,  week  in 
and  out,  in  the  same  movement,  in  close  air,  amid  the  clatter 
of  machinery  ;  and  a  person  delicately  organized  soon  sinks 
under  it.  It  takes  a  stolid,  enduring  temperament  to  bear 
factory  labor.  Now  look  at  Marianne's  house  and  family, 
and  see  what  is  insured  to  your  protegee  there. 

"  In  the  first  place,  a  home,  —  a  neat,  quiet  chamber,  quite 
as  good  as  she  has  probably  been  accustomed  to,  —  the  very 
best  of  food,  served  in  a  pleasant,  light,  airy  kitchen,  which 
is  one  of  the  most  agreeable  rooms  in  the  house,  and  the 
table  and  table  service  quite  equal  to  those  of  most  farmers 
and  mechanics.  Then  her  daily  tasks  would  be  light  and 
varied,  —  some  sweeping,  some  dusting,  the  washing  and 
dressing  of  children,  the  care  of  their  rooms  and  the  nur 
sery,  —  all  of  it  the  most  healthful,  the  most  natural  work 
of  a  woman,  —  work  alternating  with  rest,  and  diverting 
thought  from  painful  subjects  by  its  variety,  and,  what  is 
more,  a  kind  of  work  in  which  a  good  Christian  woman 
might  have  satisfaction,  as  feeling  herself  useful  in  the 
highest  and  best  way ;  for  the  child's  nurse,  if  she  be  a 
pious,  well-educated  woman,  may  make  the  whole  course  of 
nursery  life  an  education  in  goodness.  Then,  what  is  far 
different  from  any  other  modes  of  gaining  a  livelihood,  a 
woman  in  this  capacity  can  make  and  feel  herself  really 


240  THE   CHIMNEY-CORNER 

and  truly  beloved.  The  hearts  of  little  children  are  easily 
gained,  and  their  love  is  real  and  warm,  and  no  true  woman 
can  become  the  object  of  it  without  feeling  her  own  life 
made  brighter.  Again,  she  would  have  in  Marianne  a  sin 
cere,  warm-hearted  friend,  who  would  care  for  her  tenderly, 
respect  her  sorrows,  shelter  her  feelings,  be  considerate  of 
her  wants,  and  in  every  way  aid  her  in  the  cause  she  has 
most  at  heart,  —  the  succor  of  her  family.  There  are  many 
ways  besides  her  wages  in  which  she  would  infallibly  be 
assisted  by  Marianne,  so  that  the  probability  would  be  that 
she  could  send  her  little  salary  almost  untouched  to  those 
for  whose  support  she  was  toiling,  —  all  this  on  her  part." 

"  But,"  added  my  wife,  "  on  the  other  hand,  she  would 
be  obliged  to  associate  and  be  ranked  with  common  Irish 
servants." 

"Well,"  I  answered,  "  is  there  any  occupation,  by  which 
any  of  us  gain  our  living,  which  has  not  its  disagreeable 
side  ?  Does  not  the  lawyer  spend  all  his  days  either  in  a 
dusty  office  or  in  the  foul  air  of  a  court-room  ?  Is  he  not 
brought  into  much  disagreeable  contact  with  the  lowest 
class  of  society  ?  Are  not  his  labors  dry  and  hard  and 
exhausting  ?  Does  not  the  blacksmith  spend  half  his  life 
in  soot  and  grime,  that  he  may  gain  a  competence  for  the 
other  half  ?  If  this  woman  were  to  work  in  a  factory, 
would  she  not  often  be  brought  into  associations  distasteful 
to  her  ?  Might  it  not  be  the  same  in  any  of  the  arts  and 
trades  in  which  a  living  is  to  be  got  ?  There  must  be  un 
pleasant  circumstances  about  earning  a  living  in  any  wray, 
only  I  maintain  that  those  which  a  woman  would  be  likely 
to  meet  with  as  a  servant  in  a  refined,  well-bred  Christian 
family  would  be  less  than  in  almost  any  other  calling. 
Are  there  no  trials  to  a  woman,  I  beg  to  know,  in  teach 
ing  a  district  school,  where  all  the  boys,  big  and  little, 
of  a  neighborhood  congregate  ?  For  my  part,  were  it  my 
daughter  or  sister  who  was  in  necessitous  circumstances,  I 


WHAT  WILL  YOU  DO  WITH  HER        241 

would  choose  for  her  a  position  such  as  I  name,  in  a  kind, 
intelligent,  Christian  family,  before  many  of  those  to  which 
women  do  devote  themselves." 

"  Well,"  said  Bob,  "  all  this  has  a  good  sound  enough, 
but  it  's  quite  impossible.  It 's  true,  I  verily  believe,  that 
such  a  kind  of  servant  in  our  family  would  really  prolong 
Marianne's  life  years,  —  that  it  would  improve  her  health, 
and  be  an  unspeakable  blessing  to  her,  to  me,  and  the  chil 
dren,  —  and  I  would  almost  go  down  on  my  knees  to  a 
really  well  -  educated,  good  American  woman  who  would 
come  into  our  family  and  take  that  place  ;  but  I  know  it 's 
perfectly  vain  and  useless  to  expect  it.  You  know  we  have 
tried  the  experiment  two  or  three  times  of  having  a  person 
in  our  family  who  should  be  on  the  footing  of  a  friend,  yet 
do  the  duties  of  a  servant,  and  that  we  never  could  make 
it  work  well.  These  half-and-half  people  are  so  sensitive, 
so  exacting  in  their  demands,  so  hard  to  please,  that  we 
have  come  to  the  firm  determination  that  we  will  have  no 
sliding- scale  in  our  family,  and  that  whoever  we  are  to 
depend  on  must  come  with  bona  fide  willingness  to  take 
the  position  of  a  servant,  such  as  that  position  is  in  our 
house  ;  and  that,  I  suppose,  your  protegee  would  never  do, 
even  if  she  could  thereby  live  easier,  have  less  hard  work, 
better  health,  and  quite  as  much  money  as  she  could  earn 
in  any  other  way." 

"  She  would  consider  it  a  personal  degradation,  I  sup 
pose,"  said  my  wife. 

"  And  yet,  if  she  only  knew  it,"  said  Bob,  "  I  should 
respect  her  far  more  profoundly  for  her  willingness  to  take 
that  position,  when  adverse  fortune  has  shut  other  doors." 

"Well,  now,"  said  I,  "this  woman  is,  as  I  understand, 
the  daughter  of  a  respectable  stone-mason,  and  the  domestic 
habits  of  her  early  life  have  probably  been  economical  and 
simple.  Like  most  of  our  mechanics'  daughters,  she  has 
received  in  one  of  our  high  schools  an  education  which  has 


212  THK  CHIMNEY-CORNER 

cultivated  anil  developed  her  mind  far  beyond  those  of  her 
parents  and  the  associates  of  her  childhood.  This  is  a  com 
mon  fact  in  our  American  life.  By  our  high  schools  the 
daughters  of  plain  workingmon  arc  raised  to  a  stale,  of  in 
tellectual  culture  which  seems  to  make  the  disposition  of 
them  in  any  kind  of  industrial  calling  a  dithcult  one.  They 
all  want  to  teach  school,  —  and  sehoolteaching,  consequently, 
is  an  overcrowded  profession,  —  and,  failing  that,  there-  is 
only  millinery  and  dressmaking.  Of  late,  it  is  true,  efforts 
have  heen  made  in  various  directions  to  widen  their  sphere. 
Typesetting  and  bookkeeping  are  in  some  instances  begin 
ning  to  be  open  to  them. 

"All  this  time  there  is  lying,  neglected  and  despised,  a 
calling  to  which  womanly  talents  and  instincts  are  pecu 
liarly  fitted,  —  a  calling  full  of  opportunities  of  the  most 
lasting  usefulness;  a  calling  which  insures  a  settled  home. 
respectable  protection,  healthful  exercise,  good  air,  good  food, 
and  good  wages;  a  calling  in  which  a  woman  may  make  real 
friends,  and  secure  to  herself  warm  ailect ion  :  and  yet  this 
calling  is  the  one  always  refused,  shunned,  contemned,  left 
to  the  alien  and  the  stranger,  and  that  simply  and  solely 
localise  it  bears  the  name  of  semint.  A  Christian  wo 
man,  who  holds  the  name  of  Christ  in  her  heart  in  true 
devotion,  woidd  think  it  the  greatest  possible  misfortune 
and  degradation  to  become  like  him  in  taking  upon  her 
'  the  form  of  a  servant.'  The  founder  of  Christianity  says  : 
'  Whether  is  greater,  ho  that  sitteth  at  meat  or  he  that 
serveth  ?  Hut  /  am  among  you  as  he  that  serveth.'  l^ut 
notwithstanding  these  so  plain  declarations  of  Jesus,  we 
lind  that  scarce  any  one  in  a  Christian  land  will  accept  real 
advantages  of  position  and  employment  that  come  with 
that  name  and  condition." 

"  I  suppose,"  said  my  wife,  "  I  could  prevail  upon  this 
woman  to  do  all  the  duties  of  the  situation,  if  she  could  be, 
as  they  phrase  it,  '  treated  us  one  of  the  family.' ' 


WHAT   WILL  YOU  DO  WITH   HER  243 

"  That  is  to  say,"  said  Bob,  "  if  she  could  sit  with  us  at 
the  same  table,  be  introduced  to  our  friends,  and  be  in  all 
respects  as  one  of  us.  Now,  as  to  this,  I  am  free  to  say 
that  I  have  no  false  aristocratic  scruples.  I  consider  every 
well-educated  woman  as  fully  my  equal,  not  to  say  my  supe 
rior;  but  it  does  not  follow  from  this  that  she  would  be 
one  whom  I  should  wish  to  make  a  third  party  with  me 
and  my  wife  at  meal-times.  Our  meals  are  often  our  sea 
sons  of  privacy,  —  the  times  when  we  wish  in  perfect  un 
reserve  to  speak  of  matters  that  concern  ourselves  and  our 
family  alone.  Even  invited  guests  and  family  friends 
would  not  be  always  welcome,  however  agreeable  at  times. 
Now  a  woman  may  be  perfectly  worthy  of  respect,  and  we 
may  be  perfectly  respectful  to  her,  whom  nevertheless  we 
do  not  wish  to  take  into  the  circle  of  intimate  friendship. 
I  regard  the  position  of  a  woman  who  comes  to  perform 
domestic  service  as  I  do  any  other  business  relation.  We 
have  a  very  respectable  young  lady  in  our  employ  who 
does  legal  copying  for  us,  and  all  is  perfectly  pleasant  and 
agreeable  in  our  mutual  relations  ;  but  the  case  would  be  far 
otherwise  were  she  to  take  it  into  her  head  that  we  treated 
her  with  contempt,  because  my  wife  did  not  call  on  her,  and 
because  she  was  not  occasionally  invited  to  tea.  Besides, 
I  apprehend  that  a  woman  of  quick  sensibilities,  employed 
in  domestic  service,  and  who  was  so  far  treated  as  a  member 
of  the  family  as  to  share  our  table,  would  find  her  position 
even  more  painful  and  embarrassing  than  if  she  took  once 
for  all  the  position  of  a  servant.  We  could  not  control  the 
feelings  of  our  friends  ;  we  could  not  always  insure  that 
they  would  be  free  from  aristocratic  prejudice,  even  were 
we  so  ourselves.  We  could  not  force  her  upon  their  ac 
quaintance,  and  she  might  feel  far  more  slighted  than  she 
would  in  a  position  where  no  attentions  of  any  kind  were  to 
be  expected.  Besides  which,  I  have  always  noticed  that 
persons  standing  in  this  uncertain  position  are  objects  of 


244  THE    CHIMNEY-CORNER 

peculiar  antipathy  to  the  servants  in  full ;  that  they  are  the 
cause  of  constant  and  secret  cabals  and  discontents ;  and 
that  a  family  where  the  two  orders  exist  has  always  raked 
up  in  it  the  smouldering  embers  of  a  quarrel  ready  at  any 
time  to  burst  out  into  open  feud." 

"  Well,"  said  I,  "  here  lies  the  problem  of  American  life. 
Half  our  women,  like  Marianne,  are  being  faded  and  made 
old  before  their  time  by  exhausting  endeavors  to  lead  a  life 
of  high  civilization  and  refinement  with  only  such  untrained 
help  as  is  washed  up  on  our  shores  by  the  tide  of  emigration. 
Our  houses  are  built  upon  a  plan  that  precludes  the  necessity 
of  much  hard  labor,  but  requires  rather  careful  and  nice 
handling.  A  well-trained,  intelligent  woman,  who  had  vi 
talized  her  finger-ends  by  means  of  a  well-developed  brain, 
could  do  all  the  work  of  such  a  house  with  comparatively 
little  physical  fatigue.  So  stands  the  case  as  regards  our 
houses.  Now,  over  against  the  women  that  are  perishing  in 
them  from  too  much  care,  there  is  another  class  of  American 
women  that  are  wandering  up  and  down,  perishing  for  lack 
of  some  remunerating  employment.  That  class  of  women, 
whose  developed  brains  and  less  developed  muscles  mark 
them  as  peculiarly  fitted  for  the  performance  of  the  labors  of 
a  high  civilization,  stand  utterly  aloof  from  paid  domestic 
service.  Sooner  beg,  sooner  starve,  sooner  marry  for  money, 
sooner  hang  on  as  dependents  in  families  where  they  know 
they  are  not  wanted,  than  accept  of  a  quiet  home,  easy, 
healthful  work,  and  certain  wages,  in  these  refined  and 
pleasant  modern  dwellings  of  ours." 

"  What  is  the  reason  of  this  ?  "  said  Bob. 

"  The  reason  is,  that  we  have  not  yet  come  to  the  full 
development  of  Christian  democracy.  The  taint  of  old  aris 
tocracies  is  yet  pervading  all  parts  of  our  society.  We  have 
not  yet  realized  fully  the  true  dignity  of  labor,  and  the  sur 
passing  dignity  of  domestic  labor.  And  I  must  say  that 
the  valuable  and  courageous  women  who  have  agitated  the 


WHAT  WILL  YOU  DO  WITH  HER        245 

doctrines  of  Woman's  Rights  among  us  have  not  in  all 
things  seen  their  way  clear  in  this  matter." 

"  Don't  talk  to  me  of  those  creatures,"  said  Bob,  "  those 
men-women,  those  anomalies,  neither  flesh  nor  fish,  with 
their  conventions,  and  their  cracked  woman- voices  strained 
in  what  they  call  public  speaking,  but  which  I  call  public 
squeaking !  No  man  reverences  true  women  more  than  I 
do.  I  hold  a  real,  true,  thoroughly  good  woman,  whether 
in  my  parlor  or  my  kitchen,  as  my  superior.  She  can  al 
ways  teach  me  something  that  I  need  to  know.  She  has 
always  in  her  somewhat  of  the  divine  gift  of  prophecy  ;  but 
in  order  to  keep  it,  she  must  remain  a  woman.  When  she 
crops  her  hair,  puts  on  pantaloons,  and  strides  about  in  con 
ventions,  she  is  an  abortion,  and  not  a  woman." 

"  Come  !  come  !  "  said  I,  "  after  all,  speak  with  deference. 
We  that  choose  to  wear  soft  clothing  and  dwell  in  kings' 
houses  must  respect  the  Baptists,  who  wear  leathern  girdles, 
and  eat  locusts  and  wild  honey.  They  are  the  voices  cry 
ing  in  the  wilderness,  preparing  the  way  for  a  coming  good. 
They  go  down  on  their  knees  in  the  mire  of  life  to  lift  up 
and  brighten  and  restore  a  neglected  truth ;  and  we  that 
have  not  the  energy  to  share  their  struggle  should  at  least 
refrain  from  criticising  their  soiled  garments  and  ungraceful 
action.  There  have  been  excrescences,  eccentricities,  pecu 
liarities,  about  the  camp  of  these  reformers ;  but  the  body 
of  them  have  been  true  and  noble  women,  and  worthy  of 
all  the  reverence  due  to  such.  They  have  already  in  many 
of  our  States  reformed  the  laws  relating  to  woman's  posi 
tion,  and  placed  her  on  a  more  just  and  Christian  basis. 
It  is  through  their  movements  that  in  many  of  our  States 
a  woman  can  hold  the  fruits  of  her  own  earnings,  if  it  be 
her  ill  luck  to  have  a  worthless,  drunken  spendthrift  for 
a  husband.  It  is  owing  to  their  exertions  that  new  trades 
and  professions  are  opening  to  woman  ;  and  all  that  I  have 
to  say  to  them  is,  that  in  the  suddenness  of  their  zeal  for 


246  THE   CHIMNEY-CORNER 

opening  new  paths  for  her  feet,  they  have  not  sufficiently 
considered  the  propriety  of  straightening,  widening,  and 
mending  the  one  broad,  good  old  path  of  domestic  labor, 
established  by  God  himself.  It  does  appear  to  me,  that, 
if  at  least  a  portion  of  their  zeal  could  be  spent  in  remov 
ing  the  stones  out  of  this  highway  of  domestic  life,  and 
making  it  pleasant  and  honorable,  they  would  effect  even 
more.  I  would  not  have  them  leave  undone  what  they  are 
doing  ;  but  I  would,  were  I  worthy  to  be  considered,  humbly 
suggest  to  their  prophetic  wisdom  and  enthusiasm,  whether, 
in  this  new  future  of  women  which  they  wish  to  introduce, 
women's  natural,  God-given  employment  of  domestic  sendee 
is  not  to  receive  a  new  character,  and  rise  in  a  new  form. 

"  '  To  love  and  serve '  is  a  motto  worn  with  pride  on  some 
aristocratic  family  shields  in  England.  It  ought  to  be  graven 
on  the  Christian  shield.  .  Servant  is  the  name  which  Christ 
gives  to  the  Christian  ;  and  in  speaking  of  his  kingdom  as 
distinguished  from  earthly  kingdoms,  he  distinctly  said,  that 
rank  there  should  be  conditioned,  not  upon  desire  to  com 
mand,  but  on  willingness  to  serve. 

"  (  Ye  know  that  the  princes  of  the  Gentiles  exercise  do 
minion  over  them,  and  they  that  are  great  exercise  authority 
upon  them.  But  it  shall  not  be  so  among  you :  but  who 
soever  will  be  great  among  you,  let  him  be  your  minister  5 
and  whosoever  will  be  chief  among  you,  let  him  be  your 
servant.' 

"  Why  is  it,  that  this  name  of  servant,  which  Christ  says 
is  the  highest  in  the  kingdom  of  heaven,  is  so  dishonored 
among  us  professing  Christians,  that  good  women  will  beg 
or  starve,  will  suffer  almost  any  extreme  of  poverty  and  pri 
vation,  rather  than  accept  home,  competence,  security,  with 
this  honored  name  ?  " 

"The  fault  with  many  of  our  friends  of  the  Woman's 
Rights  order,"  said  my  wife,  "is  the  depreciatory  tone  in 
which  they  have  spoken  of  the  domestic  labors  of  a  family 


WHAT   WILL   YOU   DO   WITH   HER  247 

as  being  altogether  below  the  scope  of  the  faculties  of  wo 
man.  '  Domestic  drudgery '  they  call  it,  —  an  expression 
that  has  done  more  harm  than  any  two  words  that  ever  were 
put  together. 

"  Think  of  a  woman's  calling  clear-starching  and  ironing 
domestic  drudgery,  and  to  better  the  matter  turning  to  type 
setting  in  a  grimy  printing  office  !  Call  the  care  of  china 
and  silver,  the  sweeping  of  carpets,  the  arrangement  of  par 
lors  and  sitting-rooms,  drudgery ;  and  go  into  a  factory  and 
spend  the  day  amid  the  whir  and  clatter  and  thunder  of 
machinery,  inhaling  an  atmosphere  loaded  with  wool  and 
machine  grease,  and  keeping  on  the  feet  for  twelve  hours, 
nearly  continously  !  Think  of  its  being  called  drudgery  to 
take  care  of  a  clean,  light,  airy  nursery,  to  wash  and  dress 
and  care  for  two  or  three  children,  to  mend  their  clothes, 
tell  them  stories,  make  them  playthings,  take  them  out  walk 
ing  or  driving  ;  and  rather  than  this,  to  wear  out  the  whole 
livelong  day,  extending  often  deep  into  the  night,  in  endless 
sewing,  in  a  close  room  of  a  dressmaking  establishment !  Is 
it  any  less  drudgery  to  stand  all  day  behind  a  counter,  serv 
ing  customers,  than  to  tend  a  door-bell  and  wait  on  a  table  ? 
For  my  part,"  said  my  wife,  "  I  have  often  thought  the 
matter  over,  and  concluded,  that,  if  I  were  left  in  straitened 
circumstances,  as  many  are  in  a  great  city,  I  would  seek  a 
position  as  a  servant  in  one  of  our  good  families/' 

"  I  envy  the  family  that  you  even  think  of  in  that  con 
nection,"  said  I.  "I  fancy  the  amazement  which  would 
take  possession  of  them  as  you  began  to  develop  among 
them." 

"  I  have  always  held,"  said  my  wife,  "  that  family  work, 
in  many  of  its  branches,  can  be  better  performed  by  an 
educated  woman  than  an  uneducated  one.  Just  as  an  army 
where  even  the  bayonets  think  is  superior  to  one  of  mere 
brute  force  and  mechanical  training,  so,  I  have  heard  it  said, 
some  of  our  distinguished  modern  female  reformers  show 


248  THE   CHIMNEY-CORNER 

an  equal  superiority  in  the  domestic  sphere,  —  and  I  do  not 
doubt  it.  Family  work  was  never  meant  to  be  the  special 
province  of  untaught  brains.  I  have  sometimes  thought  I 
should  like  to  show  what  I  could  do  as  a  servant." 

"  Well,"  said  Bob,  "  to  return  from  all  this  to  the  ques 
tion,  What  Js  to  be  done  with  her  ?  Are  you  going  to  my 
distressed  woman  ?  If  you  are,  suppose  you  take  your  dis 
tressed  woman  along,  and  ask  her  to  try  it.  I  can  promise 
her  a  pleasant  house,  a  quiet  room  by  herself,  healthful  and 
not  too  hard  work,  a  kind  friend,  and  some  leisure  for  read 
ing,  writing,  or  whatever  other  pursuit  of  her  own  she  may 
choose  for  her  recreation.  We  are  always  quite  willing  to 
lend  books  to  any  who  appreciate  them.  Our  house  is  sur 
rounded  by  pleasant  grounds,  which  are  open  to  our  servants 
as  to  ourselves.  So  let  her  come  and  try  us.  I  am  quite 
sure  that  country  air,  quiet  security,  and  moderate  exercise 
in  a  good  home,  will  bring  up  her  health ;  and  if  she  is 
willing  to  take  the  one  or  two  disagreeables  which  may 
come  with  all  this,  let  her  try  us." 

"  Well,"  said  I,  "  so  be  it ;  and  would  that  all  the  women 
seeking  homes  and  employment  could  thus  fall  in  with 
women  who  have  homes  and  are  perishing  in  them  for  want 
of  educated  helpers  !  " 

On  this  question  of  woman's  work  I  have  yet  more  to 
say,  but  must  defer  it  till  another  time. 


II 


"WHAT  do  you  think  of  this  Woman's  Eights  question  ?  " 
said  Bob  Stephens.  "  From  some  of  your  remarks,  I  appre 
hend  that  you  think  there  is  something  in  it.  I  may  be 
wrong,  but  I  must  confess  that  I  have  looked  with  disgust 
on  the  whole  movement.  No  man  reverences  women  as  I 
do ;  but  I  reverence  them  as  women.  I  reverence  them  for 
those  very  things  in  which  their  sex  differs  from  ours ;  but 
when  they  come  upon  our  ground,  and  begin  to  work  and 
fight  after  our  manner  and  with  our  weapons,  I  regard  them 
as  fearful  anomalies,  neither  men  nor  women.  These  Wo 
man's  Bights  Conventions  appear  to  me  to  have  ventilated 
crudities,  absurdities,  and  blasphemies.  To  hear  them  talk 
about  men,  one  would  suppose  that  the  two  sexes  were 
natural-born  enemies,  and  wonder  whether  they  ever  had 
fathers  and  brothers.  One  would  think,  upon  their  show 
ing,  that  all  men  were  a  set  of  ruffians,  in  league  against 
women,  —  they  seeming,  at  "the  same  time,  to  forget  how 
on  their  very  platforms  the  most  constant  and  gallant 
defenders  of  their  rights  are  men.  Wendell  Phillips  and 
Went  worth  Higginson  have  put  at  the  service  of  the  cause 
masculine  training  and  manly  vehemence,  and  complacently 
accepted  the  wholesale  abuse  of  their  own  sex  at  the  hands 
of  their  warrior  sisters.  One  would  think,  were  all  they 
say  of  female  powers  true,  that  our  Joan-of-Arcs  ought  to 
have  disdained  to  fight  under  male  captains." 

"  I  think,'7  said  my  wife,  "  that,  in  all  this  talk  about 
the  rights  of  men,  and  the  rights  of  women,  and  the  rights 


250  THE   CHIMNEY-CORNER 

of  children,  the  world  seems  to  be  forgetting  what  is  quite 
as  important,  the  duties  of  men  and  women  and  children. 
We  all  hear  of  our  rights  till  we  forget  our  duties  y  and 
even  theology  is  beginning  to  concern  itself  more  with  what 
man  has  a  right  to  expect  of  his  Creator  than  what  the 
Creator  has  a  right  to  expect  of  man." 

"  You  say  the  truth/'  said  I ;  "  there  is  danger  of  just 
this  overaction ;  and  yet  rights  must  be  discussed ;  because, 
in  order  to  understand  the  duties  we  owe  to  any  class,  we 
must  understand  their  rights.  To  know  our  duties  to  men, 
women,  and  children,  we  must  know  what  the  rights  of 
men,  women,  and  children  justly  are.  As  to  the  i  Woman's 
Rights  movement,'  it  is  not  peculiar  to  America,  it  is  part 
of  a  great  wave  in  the  incoming  tide  of  modern  civilization ; 
the  swell  is  felt  no  less  in  Europe,  but  it  combs  over  and 
breaks  on  our  American  shore,  because  our  great  wide  beach 
affords  the  best  play  for  its  waters ;  and  as  the  ocean  waves 
bring  with  them  kelp,  seaweed,  mud,  sand,  gravel,  and 
even  putrefying  debris,  which  lie  unsightly  on  the  shore, 
and  yet,  on  the  whole,  are  healthful  and  refreshing,  —  so 
the  Woman's  Eights  movement,  with  its  conventions,  its 
speech-makings,  its  crudities,  and  eccentricities,  is  neverthe 
less  a  part  of  a  healthful  and  necessary  movement  of  the 
human  race  towards  progress.  This  question  of  Woman 
•  and  her  Sphere  is  now,  perhaps,  the  greatest  of  the  age. 
We  have  put  Slavery  under  foot,  and  with  the  downfall  of 
Slavery  the  only  obstacle  to  the  success  of  our  great  demo 
cratic  experiment  is  overthrown,  and  there  seems  no  limit 
to  the  splendid  possibilities  which  it  may  open  before  the 
human  race. 

"  In  the  reconstruction  that  is  now  coming  there  lies 
more  than  the  reconstruction  of  States  and  the  arrangement 
of  the  machinery  of  government.  We  need  to  know  and 
feel,  all  of  us,  that,  from  the  moment  of  the  death  of  Slavery, 
we  parted  finally  from  the  regime  and  control  of  all  the  old 


WOMAN'S  SPHERE  251 

ideas  formed  under  old  oppressive  systems  of  society,  and 
came  upon  a  new  plane  of  life. 

"  In  this  new  life  we  must  never  forget  that  we  are  a 
peculiar  people,  that  we  have  to  walk  in  paths  unknown  to 
the  Old  World,  —  paths  where  its  wisdom  cannot  guide  us, 
where  its  precedents  can  be  of  little  use  to  us,  and  its  criti 
cisms,  in  most  cases,  must  be  wholly  irrelevant.  The  his 
tory  of  our  war  has  shown  us  of  how  little  service  to  us 
in  any  important  crisis  the  opinions  and  advice  of  the  Old 
World  can  be.  We  have  been  hurt  at  what  seemed  to  us 
the  want  of  sympathy,  the  direct  antagonism,  of  England. 
We  might  have  been  less  hurt  if  we  had  properly  understood 
that  Providence  had  placed  us  in  a  position  so  far  ahead  of 
her  ideas  or  power  of  comprehension  that  just  judgment  or 
sympathy  was  not  to  be  expected  from  her. 

"  As  we  went  through  our  great  war  with  no  help  but 
that  of  God,  obliged  to  disregard  the  misconceptions  and 
impertinences  which  the  foreign  press  rained  down  upon  us, 
so,  if  we  are  wise,  we  shall  continue  to  do.  Our  object 
must  now  be  to  make  the  principles  on  which  our  govern 
ment  is  founded  permeate  consistently  the  mass  of  society, 
and  to  purge  out  the  leaven  of  aristocratic  and  Old  World 
ideas.  So  long  as  there  is  an  illogical  working  in  our 
actual  life,  so  long  as  there  is  any  class  denied  equal  rights 
with  other  classes,  so  long  will  there  be  agitation  and 
trouble." 

"  Then,"  said  my  wife,  "  you  believe  that  women  ought 
to  vote  ?  " 

"  If  the  principle  on  which  we  founded  our  government 
is  true,  that  taxation  must  not  exist  without  representation, 
and  if  women  hold  property  and  are  taxed,  it  follows  that 
women  should  be  represented  in  the  State  by  their  votes, 
or  there  is  an  illogical  working  of  our  government." 

"  But,  my  dear,  don't  you  think  that  this  will  have  a  bad 
effect  on  the  female  character  ?  " 


252  THE   CHIMNEY-CORNER 

"  Yes,"  said  Bob,  "  it  will  make  women  caucus  holders, 
political  candidates/' 

"  It  may  make  this  of  some  women,  just  as  of  some  men," 
said  I.  "  But  all  men  do  not  take  any  great  interest  in 
politics  ;  it  is  very  difficult  to  get  some  of  the  best  of  them 
to  do  their  duty  in  voting,  and  the  same  will  be  found  true 
among  women." 

"  But,  after  all,"  said  Bob,  "  what  do  you  gain  ?  What 
will  a  woman's  vote  be  but  a  duplicate  of  that  of  her  hus 
band  or  father,  or  whatever  man  happens  to  be  her  adviser  ?  " 

"  That  may  be  true  on  a  variety  of  questions  ;  but  there 
are  subjects  on  which  the  vote  of  women  would,  I  think,  be 
essentially  different  from  that  of  men.  On  the  subjects  of 
temperance,  public  morals,  and  education,  I  have  no  doubt 
that  the  introduction  of  the  female  vote  into  legislation,  in 
States,  counties,  and  cities,  would  produce  results  very  dif 
ferent  from  that  of  men  alone.  There  are  thousands  of 
women  who  would  close  grogshops,  and  stop  the  traffic  in 
spirits,  if  they  had  the  legislative  power  ;  and  it  would  be 
well  for  society  if  they  had.  In  fact,  I  think  that  a  State 
can  no  more  afford  to  dispense  with  the  vote  of  women  in 
its  affairs  than  a  family.  Imagine  a  family  where  the  fe 
male  has  no  voice  in  the  housekeeping !  A  State  is  but  a 
larger  family,  and  there  are  many  of  its  concerns  which, 
equally  with  those  of  a  private  household,  would  be  bettered 
by  female  supervision." 

f{  But  fancy  women  going  to  those  horrible  voting-places ! 
It  is  more  than  I  can  do  myself,"  said  Bob. 

"  But  you  forget,"  said  I,  "  that  they  are  horrible  and 
disgusting  principally  because  women  never  go  to  them. 
All  places  where  women  are  excluded  tend  downward  to 
barbarism ;  but  the  moment  she  is  introduced,  there  come 
in  with  her  courtesy,  cleanliness,  sobriety,  and  order.  When 
a  man  can  walk  up  to  the  ballot-box  with  his  wife  or  his 
sister  on  his  arm,  voting-places  will  be  far  more  agreeable 


WOMAN'S  SPHERE  253 

than  now,  and  the  polls  will  not  be  such  bear-gardens  that 
refined  men  will  be  constantly  tempted  to  omit  their  politi 
cal  duties  there. 

"  If  for  nothing  else,  I  would  have  women  vote,  that  the 
business  of  voting  may  not  be  so  disagreeable  and  intolera 
ble  to  men  of  refinement  as  it  now  is ;  and  I  sincerely  be 
lieve  that  the  cause  of  good  morals,  good  order,  cleanliness, 
and  public  health  would  be  a  gainer  not  merely  by  the 
added  feminine  vote,  but  by  the  added  vote  of  a  great  many 
excellent  but  too  fastidious  men,  who  are  now  kept  from 
the  polls  by  the  disagreeables  they  meet  there. 

"Do  you 'suppose  that,  if  women  had  equal  representa 
tion  with  men  in  the  municipal  laws  of  New  York,  its  repu 
tation  for  filth  during  the  last  year  would  have  gone  so  far 
beyond  that  of  Cologne,  or  any  other  city  renowned  for  bad 
smells  ?  I  trow  not.  I  believe  a  lady  mayoress  would 
have  brought  in  a  dispensation  of  brooms  and  whitewash, 
and  made  a  terrible  searching  into  dark  holes  and  vile  cor 
ners,  before  now.  Female  New  York,  I  have  faith  to  be 
lieve,  has  yet  left  in  her  enough  of  the  primary  instincts  of 
womanhood  to  give  us  a  clean,  healthy  city,  if  female  votes 
had  any  power  to  do  it." 

"  But,"  said  Bob,  "  you  forget  that  voting  would  bring 
together  all  the  women  of  the  lower  classes." 

"  Yes ;  but,  thanks  to  the  instincts  of  their  sex,  they 
would  come  in  their  Sunday  clothes  ;  for  where  is  the 
woman  that  has  n't  her  finery,  and  will  not  embrace  every 
chance  to  show  it  ?  Biddy's  parasol,  and  hat  with  pink 
ribbons,  would  necessitate  a  clean  shirt  in  Pat  as  much  as 
on  Sunday.  Voting  would  become  a  fete,  and  we  should 
have  a  population  at  the  polls  as  well  dressed  as  at  church. 
Such  is  my  belief." 

"  I  do  not  see,"  said  Bob,  "  but  you  go  to  the  full  ex 
tent  with  our  modern  female  reformers." 

"  There   are  certain  neglected  truths,  which   have  been 


254  THE   CHIMNEY-COKNER 

held  up  by  these  reformers,  that  are  gradually  being  accepted 
and  infused  into  the  life  of  modern  society ;  and  their  recog 
nition  will  help  to  solidify  and  purify  democratic  institutions. 
They  are  :  — 

"1.  The  right  of  every  woman  to  hold  independent 
property. 

"2.  The  right  of  every  woman  to  receive  equal  pay  with 
man  for  work  which  she  does  equally  well. 

"  3.  The  right  of  any  woman  to  do  any  work  for  which, 
by  her  natural  organization  and  talent,  she  is  peculiarly 
adapted. 

"  Under  the  first  head,  our  energetic  sisters  have  already, 
by  the  help  of  their  gallant  male  adjutants,  reformed  the 
laws  of  several  of  our  States,  so  that  a  married  woman  is  no 
longer  left  the  unprotected  legal  slave  of  any  unprincipled, 
drunken  spendthrift  who  may  be  her  husband,  —  but,  in 
case  of  the  imbecility  or  improvidence  of  the  natural  head 
of  the  family,  the  wife,  if  she  have  the  ability,  can  conduct 
business,  make  contracts,  earn  and  retain  money  for  the 
good  of  the  household  ;  and  I  am  sure  no  one  can  say  that 
immense  injustice  and  cruelty  are  not  thereby  prevented. 

"  It  is  quite  easy  for  women  who  have  the  good  fortune 
to  have  just  and  magnanimous  husbands  to  say  that  they 
feel  no  interest  in  such  reforms,  and  that  they  would  will 
ingly  trust  their  property  to  the  man  to  whom  they  give 
themselves  ;  but  they  should  remember  that  laws  are  not 
made  for  the  restraint  of  the  generous  and  just,  but  of  the 
dishonest  and  base.  The  law  which  enables  a  married 
woman  to  hold  her  own  property  does  not  forbid  her  to  give 
it  to  the  man  of  her  heart,  if  she  so  pleases ;  and  it  does 
protect  many  women  who  otherwise  would  be  reduced  to 
the  extremest  misery.  I  once  knew  an  energetic  milliner 
who  had  her  shop  attached  four  times,  and  a  flourishing 
business  broken  up  in  four  different  cities,  because  she  was 
tracked  from  city  to  city  by  a  worthless  spendthrift,  who 


WOMAN'S  SPHEKE  255 

only  waited  till  she  had  amassed  a  little  property  in  a  new 
place  to  swoop  down  upon  and  carry  it  off.  It  is  to  be 
hoped  that  the  time  is  not  distant  when  every  State  will 
give  to  woman  a  fair  chance  to  the  ownership  and  use  of  her 
own  earnings  and  her  own  property. 

"  Under  the  head  of  the  right  of  every  woman  to  do  any 
work  for  which  by  natural  organization  and  talent  she  is 
especially  adapted,  there  is  a  word  or  two  to  be  said. 

"  The  talents  and  tastes  of  the  majority  of  women  are 
naturally  domestic.  The  family  is  evidently  their  sphere, 
because  in  all  ways  their  organization  fits  them  for  that 
more  than  for  anything  else. 

"  But  there  are  occasionally  women  who  are  exceptions 
to  the  common  law,  gifted  with  peculiar  genius  and  adapta 
tions.  With  regard  to  such  women,  there  has  never  seemed 
to  be  any  doubt  in  the  verdict  of  mankind  that  they  ought 
to  follow  their  nature,  and  that  their  particular  sphere  was 
the  one  to  which  they  are  called.  Did  anybody  ever  think 
that  Mrs.  Siddons  and  Mrs.  Kemble  and  Ristori  had  better 
have  applied  themselves  sedulously  to  keeping  house,  be 
cause  they  were  women,  and  '  woman's  noblest  station  is 
retreat  >  ? 

"  The  world  has  always  shown  a  fair  average  of  good 
sense  in  this  matter,  from  the  days  of  the  fair  Hypatia  in 
Alexandria,  who,  we  are  told,  gave  lectures  on  philosophy 
behind  a  curtain,  lest  her  charms  should  distract  the  atten 
tion  of  too  impressible  young  men,  down  to  those  of  Anna 
Dickinson.  Mankind  are  not,  after  all,  quite  fools,  and 
seem  in  these  cases  to  have  a  reasonable  idea  that  excep 
tional  talents  have  exceptional  laws,  and  make  their  own 
code  of  proprieties. 

"  Now  there  is  no  doubt  that  Miss  Dickinson,  though  as 
relating  to  her  femininity  she  is  quite  as  pretty  and  modest 
a  young  woman  as  any  to  be  found  in  the  most  sheltered 
circle,  has  yet  a  most  exceptional  talent  for  public  speaking, 


250  THE  CHIMNEY-COKXER 

which  draws  crowds  to  hear  her,  and  makes  lecturing  for 
her  a  lucrative  profession,  as  well  as  a  means  of  advocating 
just  and  generous  sentiments,  and  of  stimulating  her  own 
sex  to  nobler  purposes  ;  and  the  same  law  which  relates  to 
Siddons  and  Kemble  and  Ristori  relates  also  to  her. 

"  The  doctrine  of  vocations  is  a  good  one  and  a  safe  one. 
If  a  woman  mistakes  her  vocation,  so  much  the  worse  for 
her ;  the  world  does  not  suffer,  but  she  does,  and  the  suffer 
ing  speedily  puts  her  where  she  belongs.  There  is  not  near 
so  much  danger  from  attempts  to  imitate  Anna  Dickinson 
as  there  is  from  the  more  common  feminine  attempts  to 
rival  the  demi-monde  of  Paris  in  fantastic  extravagance  and 
luxury. 

"  As  to  how  a  woman  may  determine  whether  she  has 
any  such  vocation,  there  is  a  story  quite  in  point.  A  good 
Methodist  elder  was  listening  to  an  ardent  young  mechanic 
who  thought  he  had  a  call  to  throw  up  his  shop  and  go  to 
preaching. 

" '  I  feel,'  said  the  young  ardent,  '  that  I  have  a  call  to 
preach.' 

"  '  Hast  thou  noticed  whether  people  seem  to  have  a  call 
to  hear  thee  ?  '  said  the  shrewd  old  man.  '  I  have  always 
noticed  that  a  true  call  of  the  Lord  may  be  known  by  this, 
'  that  people  have  a  call  to  hear.'  ' 

"  Well,"  said  Bob,  "  the  most  interesting  question  still 
remains  :  What  are  to  be  the  employments  of  woman  ? 
What  ways  are  there  for  her  to  use  her  talents,  to  earn  her 
livelihood  and  support  those  who  are  dear  to  her,  when 
Providence  throws  that  necessity  upon  her  ?  This  is  be 
coming  more  than  ever  one  of  the  pressing  questions  of  our 
age.  The  war  has  deprived  so  many  thousands  of  women 
of  their  natural  protectors,  that  everything  must  be  thought 
of  that  may  possibly  open  a  way  for  their  self-support." 

"  Well,  let  us  look  over  the  field,"  said  my  wife.  "  What 
is  there  for  woman  ?  " 


WOMAN'S  SPHERE  257 

"  In  the  first  place,"  said  I,  "  come  the  professions  re 
quiring  natural  genius,  —  authorship,  painting,  sculpture, 
with  the  subordinate  arts  of  photographing,  coloring,  and 
finishing ;  but  when  all  is  told,  these  furnish  employment 
to  a  very  limited  number,  —  almost  as  nothing  to  the  whole. 
Then  there  is  teaching,  which  is  profitable  in  its  higher 
branches,  and  perhaps  the  very  pleasantest  of  all  the  call 
ings  open  to  woman ;  but  teaching  is  at  present  an  over 
crowded  profession,  the  applicants  everywhere  outnumbering 
the  places.  Architecture  and  landscape  gardening  are  arts 
every  way  suited  to  the  genius  of  woman,  and  there  are 
enough  who  have  the  requisite  mechanical  skill  and  mathe 
matical  education  ;  and,  though  never  yet  thought  of  for  the 
sex,  that  I  know  of,  I  do  not  despair  of  seeing  those  who 
shall  find  in  this  field  a  profession  at  once  useful  and  ele 
gant.  When  women  plan  dwelling-houses,  the  vast  body 
of  tenements  to  be  let  in  our  cities  will  wear  a  more  domes 
tic  and  comfortable  air,  and  will  be  built  more  with  refer 
ence  to  the  real  wants  of  their  inmates." 

"  I  have  thought,"  said  Bob,  "  that  agencies  of  various 
sorts,  as  canvassing  the  country  for  the  sale  of  books,  maps, 
and  engravings,  might  properly  employ  a  great  many 
women.  There  is  a  large  class  whose  health  suffers  from 
confinement  and  sedentary  occupations,  who  might,  I  think, 
be  both  usefully  and  agreeably  employed  in  business  of  this 
sort,  and  be  recruiting  their  health  at  the  same  time." 

"  Then,"  said  my  wife,  "  there  is  the  medical  profession." 

"  Yes,"  said  I.  "  The  world  is  greatly  obliged  to  Miss 
Blackwell  and  other  noble  pioneers  who  faced  and  overcame 
the  obstacles  to  the  attainment  of  a  thorough  medical  educa 
tion  by  females.  Thanks  to  them,  a  new  and  lucrative 
profession  is  now  open  to  educated  women  in  relieving  the 
distresses  of  their  own  sex ;  and  we  may  hope  that  in  time, 
through  their  intervention,  the  care  of  the  sick  may  also 
become  the  vocation  of  cultivated,  refined,  intelligent  wo- 


258  THE   CHIMNEY-CORNER 

men,  instead  of  being  left,  as  heretofore,  to  the  ignorant 
and  vulgar.  The  experience  of  our  late  war  has  shown  us 
what  women  of  a  high  class  morally  and  intellectually  can 
do  in  this  capacity.  Why  should  not  this  experience  in 
augurate  a  new  and  sacred  calling  for  refined  and  educated 
women  ?  Why  should  not  NURSING  become  a  vocation 
equal  in  dignity  and  in  general  esteem  to  the  medical  pro 
fession,  of  which  it  is  the  right  hand  ?  Why  should  our 
dearest  hopes,  in  the  hour  of  their  greatest  peril,  be  com 
mitted  into  the  hands  of  Sairey  Gamps,  when  the  world  has 
seen  Florence  Nightingales  ?  " 

"  Yes,  indeed,"  said  my  wife  ;  "  I  can  testify,  from  my 
own  experience,  that  the  sufferings  and  dangers  of  the  sick 
bed,  for  the  want  of  intelligent,  educated  nursing,  have  been 
dreadful.  A  prejudiced,  pig-headed,  snuff- taking  old  woman, 
narrow-minded  and  vulgar,  and  more  confident  in  her  own 
way  than  seven  men  that  can  render  a  reason,  enters  your 
house  at  just  the  hour  and  moment  when  all  your  dearest 
earthly  hopes  are  brought  to  a  crisis.  She  becomes  abso 
lute  dictator  over  your  delicate,  helpless  wife  and  your  frail 
babe,  —  the  absolute  dictator  of  all  in  the  house.  If  it  be 
her  sovereign  will  and  pleasure  to  enact  all  sorts  of  physio 
logical  absurdities  in  the  premises,  who  shall  say  her  nay  ? 
1  She  knows  her  business,  she  hopes  ! '  And  if  it  be  her 
edict,  as  it  was  of  one  of  her  class  whom  I  knew,  that  each 
of  her  babies  shall  eat  four  baked  beans  the  day  it  is  four 
days  old,  eat  them  it  must ;  and  if  the  baby  die  in  convul 
sions  four  days  after,  it  is  set  down  as  the  mysterious  will 
of  an  overruling  Providence. 

"  I  know  and  have  seen  women  lying  upon  laced  pillows, 
under  silken  curtains,  who  have  been  bullied  and  dominated 
over  in  the  hour  of  their  greatest  helplessness  by  ignorant 
and  vulgar  tyrants,  in  a  way  that  would  scarce  be  thought 
possible  in  civilized  society,  and  children  that  have  been 
injured  or  done  to  death  by  the  same  means.  A  celebrated 


WOMAN'S  SPHERE  259 

physician  told  me  of  a  babe  whose  eyesight  was  nearly 
ruined  by  its  nurse  taking  a  fancy  to  wash  its  eyes  with 
camphor,  — { to  keep  it  from  catching  cold/  she  said.  I 
knew  another  infant  that  was  poisoned  by  the  nurse  giving 
it  laudanum  in  some  of  those  patent  nostrums  which  these 
ignorant  creatures  carry  secretly  in  their  pockets,  to  secure 
quiet  in  their  little  charges.  I  knew  one  delicate  woman  who 
never  recovered  from  the  effects  of  being  left  at  her  first 
confinement  in  the  hands  of  an  ill-tempered,  drinking  nurse, 
and  whose  feeble  infant  was  neglected  and  abused  by  this 
woman  in  a  way  to  cause  lasting  injury.  In  the  first  four 
weeks  of  infancy  the  constitution  is  peculiarly  impressible  ; 
and  infants  of  a  delicate  organization  may,  if  frightened  and 
ill-treated,  be  the  subjects  of  just  such  a  shock  to  the  ner 
vous  system  as  in  mature  age  comes  from  the  sudden  stroke 
of  a  great  affliction  or  terror.  A  bad  nurse  may  affect 
nerves  predisposed  to  weakness  in  a  manner  they  never  will 
recover  from.  I  solemnly  believe  that  the  constitutions  of 
more  women  are  broken  up  by  bad  nursing  in  their  first 
confinement  than  by  any  other  cause  whatever.  And  yet 
there  are  at  the  same  time  hundreds  and  thousands  of 
women,  wanting  the  means  of  support,  whose  presence  in  a 
sick-room  would  be  a  benediction.  I  do  trust  that  Miss 
Blackwell's  band  of  educated  nurses  will  not  be  long  in 
coming,  and  that  the  number  of  such  may  increase  till  they 
effect  a  complete  revolution  in  this  vocation.  A  class  of 
cultivated,  well-trained,  intelligent  nurses  would  soon  ele 
vate  the  employment  of  attending  on  the  sick  into  the  no 
ble  calling  it  ought  to  be,  and  secure  for  it  its  appropriate 
rewards." 

"  There  is  another  opening  for  woman,"  said  I,  —  "  in 
the  world  of  business.  The  system  of  commercial  colleges 
now  spreading  over  our  land  is  a  new  and  most  important 
development  of  our  times.  There  that  large  class  of  young 
men  who  have  either  no  time  or  no  inclination  for  an  ex- 


260  THE    CHIMNEY-CORNER 

tended  classical  education  can  learn  what  will  fit  them  for 
that  active  material  life  which  in  our  broad  country  needs 
so  many  workers.  But  the  most  pleasing  feature  of  these 
institutions  is,  that  the  complete  course  is  open  to  women 
no  less  than  to  men,  and  women  there  may  acquire  that 
knowledge  of  bookkeeping  and  accounts,  and  of  the  forms 
and  principles  of  business  transactions,  which  will  qualify 
them  for  some  of  the  lucrative  situations  hitherto  monopo 
lized  by  the  other  sex.  And  the  expenses  of  the  course 
of  instruction  are  so  arranged  as  to  come  within  the  scope 
of  very  moderate  means.  A  fee  of  fifty  dollars  entitles  a 
woman  to  the  benefit  of  the  whole  course,  and  she  has  the 
privilege  of  attending  at  any  hours  that  may  suit  her  own 
engagements  and  convenience." 

"  Then,  again,"  said  my  wife,  "  there  are  the  depart 
ments  of  millinery  and  dressmaking,  and  the  various  branches 
of  needlework,  which  afford  employment  to  thousands  of 
women  ;  there  is  typesetting,  by  which  many  are  beginning 
to  get  a  living  ;  there  are  the  manufactures  of  cotton,  woolen, 
silk,  and  the  numberless  useful  articles  which  employ  female 
hands  in  their  fabrication,  —  all  of  them  opening  avenues 
by  which,  with  more  or  less  success,  a  subsistence  can  be 
gained." 

"  Well,  really,"  said  Bob,  "  it  would  appear,  after  all, 
that  there  are  abundance  of  openings  for  women.  What  is 
the  cause  of  the  outcry  and  distress  ?  How  is  it  that  we 
hear  of  women  starving,  driven  to  vice  and  crime  by  want, 
when  so  many  doors  of  useful  and  profitable  employment 
stand  open  to  them  ?  " 

"  The  question  would  easily  be  solved,"  said  my  wife, 
"  if  you  could  once  see  the  kind  and  class  of  women  who 
thus  suffer  and  starve.  There  may  be  exceptions,  but  too 
large  a  portion  of  them  are  girls  and  women  who  can  or  will 
do  no  earthly  thing  well,  —  and,  what  is  worse,  are  not  will 
ing  to  take  the  pains  to  be  taught  to  do  anything  well.  I 


WOMAN'S  SPHERE  261 

will  describe  to  you  one  girl,  and  you  will  find  in  every  in 
telligence-office  a  hundred  of  her  kind  to  five  thoroughly 
trained  ones. 

"  Imprimis  :  she  is  rather  delicate  and  genteel-looking, 
and  you  may  know  from  the  arrangement  of  her  hair  just 
what  the  last  mode  is  of  disposing  of  rats  or  waterfalls. 
She  has  a  lace  bonnet  with  roses,  a  silk  mantilla,  a  silk 
dress  trimmed  with  velvet,  a  white  skirt  with  sixteen  tucks 
and  an  embroidered  edge,  a  pair  of  cloth  gaiters,  underneath 
which  are  a  pair  of  stockings  without  feet,  the  only  pair  in 
her  possession.  She  has  no  under-linen,  and  sleeps  at  night 
in  the  working-clothes  she  wears  in  the  day.  She  never 
seems  to  have  in  her  outfit  either  comb,  brush,  or  tooth 
brush  of  her  own,  —  neither  needles,  thread,  scissors,  nor 
pins  ;  her  money,  when  she  has  any,  being  spent  on  more 
important  articles,  such  as  the  lace  bonnet  or  silk  mantilla, 
or  the  rats  and  waterfalls  that  glorify  her  head.  When  she 
wishes  to  sew,  she  borrows  what  is  needful  of  a  convenient 
next  neighbor  ;  and  if  she  gets  a  place  in  a  family  as  second 
girl,  she  expects  to  subsist  in  these  respects  by  borrowing  of 
the  better-appointed  servants,  or  helping  herself  from  the 
family  stores. 

"  She  expects,  of  course,  the  very  highest  wages,  if  she 
condescends  to  live  out ;  and  by  help  of  a  trim  outside  ap 
pearance,  and  the  many  vacancies  that  are  continually  occur 
ring  in  households,  she  gets  places,  where  her  object  is  to 
do  just  as  little  of  any  duty  assigned  to  her  as  possible,  to 
hurry  through  her  performances,  put  on  her  fine  clothes,  and 
go  a-gadding.  She  is  on  free-and-easy  terms  with  all  the 
men  she  meets,  and  ready  at  jests  and  repartee,  sometimes 
far  from  seemly.  Her  time  of  service  in  any  one  place  lasts 
indifferently  from  a  fortnight  to  two  or  three  months,  when 
she  takes  her  wages,  buys  her  a  new  parasol  in  the  latest 
style,  and  goes  back  to  the  intelligence-office.  In  the  differ 
ent  families  where  she  has  lived  she  has  been  told  a  hun- 


262  THE   CHIMNEY-CORNER 

died  times  the  proprieties  of  household  life,  how  to  make 
beds,  arrange  rooms,  wash  china,  glass,  and  silver,  and  set 
tables  ;  but  her  habitual  rule  is  to  try  in  each  place  how 
small  and  how  poor  services  will  be  accepted.  When  she 
finds  less  will  not  do,  she  gives  more.  When  the  mistress 
follows  her  constantly,  and  shows  an  energetic  determina 
tion  to  be  well  served,  she  shows  that  she  can  serve  well ; 
but  the  moment  such  attention  relaxes,  she  slides  back  again. 
She  is  as  destructive  to  a  house  as  a  fire  ;  the  very  spirit  of 
wastefulness  is  in  her  ;  she  cracks  the  china,  dents  the  sil 
ver,  stops  the  water-pipes  with  rubbish,  and,  after  she  is 
gone,  there  is  generally  a  sum  equal  to  half  her  wages  to  be 
expended  in  repairing  the  effects  of  her  carelessness.  And 
yet  there  is  one  thing  to  be  said  for  her :  she  is  quite  as 
careful  of  her  employer's  things  as  of  her  own.  The  full 
amount  of  her  mischiefs  often  does  not  appear  at  once,  as 
she  is  glib  of  tongue,  adroit  in  apologies,  and  lies  with  as 
much  alertness  and  as  little  thought  of  conscience  as  a  black 
bird  chatters.  It  is  difficult  for  people  who  have  been  trained 
from  childhood  in  the  school  of  verities,  —  who  have  been 
lectured  for  even  the  shadow  of  a  prevarication,  and  shut 
up  in  disgrace  for  a  lie,  till  truth  becomes  a  habit  of  their 
souls,  —  it  is  very  difficult  for  people  so  educated  to  under 
stand  how  to  get  on  with  those  who  never  speak  the  truth 
except  by  mere  accident,  who  assert  any  and  every  thing  that 
comes  into  their  heads  with  all  the  assurance  and  all  the 
energy  of  perfect  verity. 

"  What  becomes  of  this  girl  ?  She  finds  means,  by  beg 
ging,  borrowing,  living  out,  to  keep  herself  extremely  trim 
and  airy  for  a  certain  length  of  time,  till  the  rats  and  water 
falls,  the  lace  hat  and  parasol,  and  the  glib  tongue,  have 
done  their  work  in  making  a  fool  of  some  honest  young 
mechanic  who  earns  three  dollars  a  day.  She  marries  him 
with  no  higher  object  than  to  have  somebody  to  earn  money 
for  her  to  spend.  And  what  comes  of  such  marriages  ? 


WOMAN'S  SPHERE  263 

"That  is  one  ending  of  her  career;  the  other  is  on  the 
street,  in  haunts  of  vice,  in  prison,  in  drunkenness,  and 
death. 

"  Whence  come  these  girls  ?  They  are  as  numerous  as 
yellow  butterflies  in  autumn  ;  they  flutter  up  to  cities  from 
the  country ;  they  grow  up  from  mothers  who  ran  the  same 
sort  of  career  before  them  ;  and  the  reason  why  in  the  end 
they  fall  out  of  all  reputable  employment  and  starve  on 
poor  wages  is,  that  they  become  physically,  mentally,  and 
morally  incapable  of  rendering  any  service  which  society 
will  think  worth  paying  for." 

"  I  remember,"  said  I,  "that  the  head  of  the  most  cele 
brated  dressmaking  establishment  in  New  York,  in  reply  to 
the  appeals  of  the  needlewomen  of  the  city  for  sympathy 
and  wages,  came  out  with  published  statements  to  this  effect : 
that  the  difficulty  lay,  not  in  unwillingness  of  employers  to 
pay  what  work  was  worth,  but  in  finding  any  work  worth  pay 
ing  for  ;  that  she  had  many  applicants,  but  among  them  few 
who  could  be  of  real  use  to  her ;  that  she,  in  common  with 
everybody  in  this  country  who  has  any  kind  of  serious  re 
sponsibilities  to  carry,  was  continually  embarrassed  for  want 
of  skilled  workpeople  who  could  take  and  go  on  with  the 
labor  of  her  various  departments  without  her  constant  super 
vision  ;  that,  out  of  a  hundred  girls,  there  would  not  be 
more  than  five  to  whom  she  could  give  a  dress  to  be  made 
and  dismiss  it  from  her  mind  as  something  certain  to  be 
properly  done. 

"  Let  people  individually  look  around  their  own  little 
sphere,  and  ask  themselves  if  they  know  any  woman  really 
excelling  in  any  valuable  calling  or  accomplishment  who  is 
suffering  for  want  of  work.  All  of  us  know  seamstresses, 
dressmakers,  nurses,  and  laundresses  who  have  made  them 
selves  such  a  reputation,  and  are  so  beset  and  overcrowded 
with  work,  that  the  whole  neighborhood  is  constantly  on  its 
knees  to  them  with  uplifted  hands.  The  fine  seamstress, 


264  THE   CHIMNEY-CORNER 

who  can  cut  and  make  trousseaus  and  layettes  in  elegant  per 
fection,  is  always  engaged  six  months  in  advance  ;  the  pet 
dressmaker  of  a  neighborhood  must  be  engaged  in  May  for 
September,  and  in  September  for  May  ;  a  laundress  who 
sends  your  clothes  home  in  nice  order  always  has  all  the 
work  that  she  can  do.  Good  work  in  any  department  is 
the  rarest  possible  thing  in  our  American  life  ;  and  it  is  a 
fact  that  the  great  majority  of  workers,  both  in  the  family 
and  out,  do  only  tolerably  well,  —  not  so  badly  that  it  ac 
tually  cannot  be  borne,  yet  not  so  well  as  to  be  a  source 
of  real,  thorough  satisfaction.  The  exceptional  worker  in 
every  neighborhood,  who  does  things  really  well,  can  always 
set  her  own  price,  and  is  always  having  more  offering  than 
she  can  possibly  do. 

"  The  trouble,  then,  in  finding  employment  for  women 
lies  deeper  than  the  purses  or  consciences  of  the  employers : 
it  lies  in  the  want  of  education  in  women  ;  the  want  of  ed 
ucation,  I  say,  —  meaning  by  education  that  which  fits  a 
woman  for  practical  and  profitable  employment  in  life,  and 
not  mere  common-school  learning." 

"  Yes,"  said  my  wife ;  "  for  it  is  a  fact  that  the  most 
troublesome  and  helpless  persons  to  provide  for  are  often 
those  who  have  a  good  medium  education,  but  no  feminine 
habits,  no  industry,  no  practical  calculation,  no  muscular 
strength,  and  no  knowledge  of  any  one  of  woman's  peculiar 
duties.  In  the  earlier  days  of  New  England,  women,  as  a 
class,  had  far  fewer  opportunities  for  acquiring  learning,  yet 
were  far  better  educated,  physically  and  morally,  than  now. 
The  high  school  did  not  exist ;  at  the  common  school  they 
learned  reading,  writing,  and  arithmetic,  and  practiced  spell 
ing  ;  while  at  home  they  did  the  work  of  the  household. 
They  were  cheerful,  bright,  and  active,  ever  on  the  alert, 
able  to  do  anything,  from  the  harnessing  and  driving  of  a 
horse  to  the  finest  embroidery.  The  daughters  of  New 
England  in  those  days  looked  the  world  in  the  face  without  a 


WOMAN'S  SPHERE  265 

fear.  They  shunned  no  labor ;  they  were  afraid  of  none  ; 
and  they  could  always  find  their  way  to  a  living." 

"  But  although  less  instructed  in  school  learning/'  said 
I,  "  they  showed  no  deficiency  in  intellectual  acumen.  I 
see  no  such  women,  nowadays,  as  some  I  remember  of  that 
olden  time,  —  women  whose  strong  minds  and  ever-active 
industry  carried  on  reading  and  study  side  by  side  with 
household  toils. 

a  I  remember  a  young  lady  friend  of  mine,  attending  a 
celebrated  boarding-school,  boarded  in  the  family  of  a  wo 
man  who  had  never  been  to  school  longer  than  was  neces 
sary  to  learn  to  read  and  write,  yet  who  was  a  perfect  cyclo 
pedia  of  general  information.  The  young  scholar  used  to 
take  her  Chemistry  and  Natural  Philosophy  into  the  kitchen, 
where  her  friend  was  busy  with  her  household  work,  and 
read  her  lessons  to  her,  that  she  might  have  the  benefit  of 
her  explanations  ;  and  so,  while  the  good  lady  scoured  her 
andirons  or  kneaded  her  bread,  she  lectured  to  her  protegee 
on  mysteries  of  science  far  beyond  the  limits  of  the  text 
book.  Many  of  the  graduates  of  our  modern  high  schools 
would  find  it  hard  to  shine  in  conversation  on  the  subjects 
they  had  studied,  in  the  searching  presence  of  some  of  these 
vigorous  matrons  of  the  olden  time,  whose  only  school  had 
been  the  leisure  hours  gained  by  energy  and  method  from 
their  family  cares." 

"  And  in  those  days,"  said  my  wife,  "  there  lived  in  our 
families  a  class  of  American  domestics,  women  of  good  sense 
and  good  powers  of  reflection,  who  applied  this  sense  and 
power  of  reflection  to  household  matters.  In  the  early  part 
of  my  married  life,  I  myself  had  American  '  help '  ;  and 
they  were  not  only  excellent  servants,  but  trusty  and  inval 
uable  friends.  But  now,  all  this  class  of  applicants  for  do 
mestic  service  have  disappeared,  I  scarce  know  why  or  how. 
All  I  know  is,  there  is  no  more  a  Betsey  or  a  Lois,  such  as 
used  to  take  domestic  cares  off  my  shoulders  so  completely." 


266  THE    CHIMNEY-COKNER 

" Good  heavens !  where  are  they  ?  "  cried  Bob.  "Where 
do  they  hide  ?  I  would  search  through  the  world  after 
such  a  prodigy  !  " 

"  The  fact  is,"  said  I,  "  there  has  been  a  slow  and  grad 
ual  reaction  against  household  labor  in  America.  Mothers 
began  to  feel  that  it  was  a  sort  of  curse,  to  be  spared,  if 
possible,  to  their  daughters  ;  women  began  to  feel  that  they 
were  fortunate  in  proportion  as  they  were  able  to  be  en 
tirely  clear  of  family  responsibilities.  Then  Irish  labor 
began  to  come  in,  simultaneously  with  a  great  advance  in 
female  education. 

"  For  a  long  while  nothing  was  talked  of,  written  of, 
thought  of,  in  teachers'  meetings,  conventions,  and  assem 
blies,  but  the  neglected  state  of  female  education  ;  and  the 
whole  circle  of  the  arts  and  sciences  was  suddenly  intro 
duced  into  our  free-school  system,  from  which  needlework 
as  gradually  and  quietly  was  suffered  to  drop  out.  The 
girl  who  attended  the  primary  and  high  school  had  so  much 
study  imposed  on  her  that  she  had  no  time  for  sewing  or 
housework  ;  and  the  delighted  mother  was  only  too  happy 
to  darn  her  stockings  and  do  the  housework  alone,  that  her 
daughter  might  rise  to  a  higher  plane  than  she  herself  had 
attained  to.  The  daughter,  thus  educated,  had,  on  coming 
to  womanhood,  no  solidity  of  muscle,  no  manual  dexterity, 
no  practice  or  experience  in  domestic  life  ;  and  if  she  were 
to  seek  a  livelihood,  there  remained  only  teaching,  or  some 
feminine  trade,  or  the  factory." 

"  These  factories,"  said  my  wife,  "  have  been  the  ruin 
of  hundreds  and  hundreds  of  our  once  healthy  farmers' 
daughters  and  others  from  the  country.  They  go  there 
young  and  unprotected  ;  they  live  there  in  great  boarding- 
houses,  and  associate  with  a  promiscuous  crowd,  without 
even  such  restraints  of  maternal  supervision  as  they  would 
have  in  great  boarding-schools  ;  their  bodies  are  enfeebled 
by  labor  often  necessarily  carried  on  in  a  foul  and  heated 


WOMAN'S  SPHERE  267 

atmosphere ;  and  at  the  hours  when  off  duty,  they  are  ex 
posed  to  all  the  dangers  of  unwatched  intimacy  with  the 
other  sex. 

"  Moreover,  the  factory  girl  learns  and  practices  but  one 
thing,  —  some  one  mechanical  movement,  which  gives  no 
scope  for  invention,  ingenuity,  or  any  other  of  the  powers 
called  into  play  by  domestic  labor  ;  so  that  she  is  in  real 
ity  unfitted  in  every  way  for  family  duties. 

"  Many  times  it  has  been  my  lot  to  try,  in  my  family 
service,  girls  who  have  left  factories  ;  and  I  have  found  them 
wholly  useless  for  any  of  the  things  which  a  woman  ought 
to  be  good  for.  They  knew  nothing  of  a  house,  or  what 
ought  to  be  done  in  it ;  they  had  imbibed  a  thorough  con 
tempt  of  household  labor,  and  looked  upon  it  but  as  a  dernier 
ressort ;  and  it  was  only  the  very  lightest  of  its  tasks  that 
they  could  even  begin  to  think  of.  I  remember  I  tried  to 
persuade  one  of  these  girls,  the  pretty  daughter  of  a  fisher 
man,  to  take  some  lessons  in  washing  and  ironing.  She 
was  at  that  time  engaged  to  be  married  to  a  young  me 
chanic,  who  earned  something  like  two  or  three  dollars  a 
day. 

"  '  My  child/  said  I,  '  you  will  need  to  understand  all 
kinds  of  housework  if  you  are  going  to  be  married.' 


"  She  tossed  her  little  head,  — 


"  l  Indeed,  she  was  n't  going  to  trouble  herself  about 
that.' 

"  '  But  who  will  get  up  your  husband's  shirts  ?  ' 

"  '  Oh,  he  must  put  them  out.  I  'm  not  going  to  be  mar 
ried  to  make  a  slave  of  myself !  ? 

l<  Another  young  factory  girl,  who  came  for  table  and 
parlor  work,  was  so  full  of  airs  and  fine  notions  that  it 
seemed  as  difficult  to  treat  with  her  as  with  a  princess.  She 
could  not  sweep,  because  it  blistered  her  hands,  which,  in 
fact,  were  long  and  delicate  ;  she  could  not  think  of  putting 
them  into  hot  dish-water,  and  for  that  reason  preferred 


268  THE    CHIMNEY-CORNER 

washing  the  dishes  in  cold  water  ;  she  required  a  full  hour 
in  the  morning  to  make  her  toilet ;  she  was  laced  so  tightly 
that  she  could  not  stoop  without  vertigo ;  and  her  hoops  were 
of  dimensions  which  seemed  to  render  it  impossible  for  her 
to  wait  upon  table  ;  she  was  quite  exhausted  with  the  elfort 
of  ironing  the  table-napkins  and  chamber-towels  :  yet  she 
could  not  think  of  '  living  out '  under  two  dollars  a  week. 

"  Both  these  girls  had  had  a  good  free-school  education, 
and  could  read  any  amount  of  novels,  write  a  tolerable 
letter,  but  had  not  learned  anything  with  sufficient  accuracy 
to  fit  them  for  teachers.  They  were  pretty,  and  their  des 
tiny  was  to  marry  and  lie  a  deadweight  on  the  hands  of 
fcome  honest  man,  and  to  increase,  in  their  children,  the 
number  of  incapables." 

"  Well,"  said  Bob,  "  what  would  you  have  ?  What  is 
to  be  done  ?  " 

"  In  the  first  place,"  said  I,  "  I  would  have  it  felt,  by 
jthose  who  are  seeking  to  elevate  woman,  that  the  work  is 
be  done,  not  so  much  by  creating  for  her  new  spheres 
of  action  as  by  elevating  her  conceptions  of  that  domestic 
vocation  to  which  God  and  Nature  have  assigned  her.  It  is 
all  very  well  to  open  to  her  avenues  of  profit  and  advance 
ment  in  the  great  outer  world  ;  but,  after  all,  to  make  and 
keep  a  home  is,  and  ever  must  be,  a  woman's  first  glory, 
her  highest  aim.  No  work  of  art  can  compare  with  a  per 
fect  home  ;  the  training  and  guiding  of  a  family  must  be 
recognized  as  the  highest  work  a  woman  can  perform  ;  and 
female  education  ought  to  be  conducted  with  special  refer 
ence  to  this. 

"  Men  are  trained  to  be  lawyers,  to  be  physicians,  to  be 
mechanics,  by  long  and  self-denying  study  and  practice. 
A  man  cannot  even  make  shoes  merely  by  going  to  the 
high  school  and  learning  reading,  writing,  and  mathematics ; 
he  cannot  be  a  bookkeeper  or  a  printer  simply  from  general 
education. 


via 

Tto 


WOMAN'S  SPHERE  269 

"  Now  women  have  a  sphere  and  profession  of  their  own, 
—  a  profession  for  which  they  are  fitted  by  physical  organ 
ization,  by  their  own  instincts,  and  to  which  they  are  di 
rected  by  the  pointing  and  manifest  finger  of  God,  —  and 
that  sphere  is  family  life.  Duties  to  the  state  and  to  public 
life  they  may  have  ;  but  the  public  duties  of  women  must 
bear  to  their  family  ones  the  same  relation  that  the  family 
duties  of  men  bear  to  their  public  ones.  The  defect  in  the 
late  efforts  to  push  on  female  education  is,  that  it  has  been 
for  her  merely  general,  and  that  it  has  left  out  and  excluded 
all  that  is  professional  ;  and  she  undertakes  the  essential 
duties  of  womanhood,  when  they  do  devolve  on  her,  with 
out  any  adequate  preparation." 

"  But  is  it  possible  for  a  girl  to  learn  at  school  the  things 
which  fit  for  her  family  life  ?  "  said  Bob. 

"  Why  not  ?  "  I  replied.  "  Once  it  was  thought  impos 
sible  in  school  to  teach  girls  geometry  or  algebra,  or  the 
higher  mathematics ;  it  was  thought  impossible  to  put  them 
through  collegiate  courses  ;  but  it  has  been  done,  and  we 
see  it.  Women  study  treatises  on  political  economy  in 
schools,  and  why  should  not  the  study  of  domestic  economy 
form  a  part  of  every  school  course  ?  A  young  girl  will 
stand  up  at  the  blackboard,  and  draw  and  explain  the  com 
pound  blowpipe,  and  describe  all  the  processes  of  making 
oxygen  and  hydrogen.  Why  should  she  not  draw  and  ex 
plain  a  refrigerator  as  well  as  an  air-pump  ?  Both  are  to  be 
explained  on  philosophical  principles.  When  a  schoolgirl, 
in  her  chemistry,  studies  the  reciprocal  action  of  acids  and 
alkalies,  what  is  there  to  hinder  the  teaching  her  its  appli 
cation  to  the  various  processes  of  cooking  where  acids  and 
alkalies  are  employed  ?  Why  should  she  not  be  led  to  see 
how  effervescence  and  fermentation  can  be  made  to  perform 
their  office  in  the  preparation  of  light  and  digestible  bread  ? 
Why  should  she  not  be  taught  the  chemical  substances  by 
which  food  is  often  adulterated,  and  the  test  by  which  such 


270  THE    CHIMNEY-CORNER 

adulterations  are  detected  ?  Why  should  she  not  understand 
the  processes  of  confectionery,  and  know  how  to  guard 
against  the  deleterious  or  poisonous  elements  that  are  in 
troduced  into  children's  sugar-plums  and  candies  ?  Why, 
when  she  learns  the  doctrine  of  mordants,  the  substances 
by  which  different  colors  are  set,  should  she  not  learn  it 
with  some  practical  view  to  future  life,  so  that  she  may  know 
how  to  set  the  color  of  a  fading  calico  or  restore  the  color 
of  a  spotted  one  ?  Why,  in  short,  when  a  girl  has  labored 
through  a  profound  chemical  work,  and  listened  to  courses  of 
chemical  lectures,  should  she  come  to  domestic  life,  which 
presents  a  constant  series  of  chemical  experiments  and 
changes,  and  go  blindly  along  as  without  chart  or  compass, 
unable  to  tell  what  will  take  out  a  stain,  or  what  will 
brighten  a  metal,  what  are  common  poisons  and  what  their 
antidotes,  and  not  knowing  enough  of  the  laws  of  caloric  to 
understand  how  to  warm  a  house,  or  of  the  laws  of  atmos 
phere  to  know  how  to  ventilate  one  ?  Why  should  the 
preparation  of  food,  that  subtile  art  on  which  life,  health, 
cheerfulness,  good  temper,  and  good  looks  so  largely  depend, 
forever  be  left  in  the  hands  of  the  illiterate  and  vulgar  ? 

u  A  benevolent  gentleman  has  lately  left  a  large  fortune 
for  the  founding  of  a  university  for  women ;  and  the  object 
is  stated  to  be  to  give  to  women  who  have  already  acquired 
a  general  education  the  means  of  acquiring  a  professional 
one,  to  fit  themselves  for  some  employment  by  which  they 
may  gain  a  livelihood. 

"  In  this  institution  the  women  are  to  be  instructed  in 
bookkeeping,  stenography,  telegraphing,  photographing, 
drawing,  modeling,  and  various  other  arts  ;  but,  so  far  as 
I  remember,  there  is  no  proposal  to  teach  domestic  economy 
as  at  least  one  of  woman's  professions. 

"  Why  should  there  not  be  a  professor  of  domestic  economy 
in  every  large  female  school  ?  Wrhy  should  not  this  profes 
sor  give  lectures,  first  on  house  planning  and  building,  illus- 


WOMAN'S  SPHERE  271 

trated  by  appropriate  apparatus  ?  Why  should  not  the  pupils 
have  presented  to  their  inspection  models  of  houses  planned 
with  reference  to  economy,  to  ease  of  domestic  service,  to 
warmth,  to  ventilation,  and  to  architectural  appearance  ? 
Why  should  not  the  professor  go  on  to  lecture  further  on 
house- fixtures,  with  models  of  the  best  mangles,  wrashing- 
machines,  clothes-wringers,  ranges,  furnaces,  and  cooking- 
stoves,  together  with  drawings  and  apparatus  illustrative  of 
domestic  hydraulics,  showing  the  best  contrivances  for  bath 
ing-rooms  and  the  obvious  principles  of  plumbing,  so  that 
the  pupils  may  have  some  idea  how  to  work  the  machinery 
of  a  convenient  house  when  they  have  it,  and  to  have  such 
conveniences  introduced  when  wanting  ?  If  it  is  thought 
worth  while  to  provide  at  great  expense  apparatus  for  teach 
ing  the  revolutions  of  Saturn's  moons  and  the  precession  of 
the  equinoxes,  why  should  there  not  be  some  also  to  teach 
what  it  may  greatly  concern  a  woman's  earthly  happiness 
to  know  ? 

"  Why  should  not  the  professor  lecture  on  home  chemis 
try,  devoting  his  first  lecture  to  bread-making  ?  and  why 
might  not  a  batch  of  bread  be  made  and  baked  and  ex 
hibited  to  the  class,  together  with  specimens  of  morbid 
anatomy  in  the  bread  line,  —  the  sour  cotton  bread  of  the 
baker  ;  the  rough,  big-holed  bread  ;  the  heavy,  fossil  bread  • 
the  bitter  bread  of  too  much  yeast,  —  and  the  causes  of  their 
defects  pointed  out  ?  And  so  with  regard  to  the  various 
articles  of  food,  —  why  might  not  chemical  lectures  be 
given  on  all  of  them,  one  after  another  ?  In  short,  it 
would  be  easy  to  trace  out  a  course  of  lectures  on  common 
things  to  occupy  a  whole  year,  and  for  which  the  pupils, 
whenever  they  come  to  have  homes  of  their  own,  will  thank 
the  lecturer  to  the  last  day  of  their  life. 

"  Then  there  is  no  impossibility  in  teaching  needlework, 
the  cutting  and  fitting  of  dresses,  in  female  schools.  The 
thing  is  done  very  perfectly  in  English  schools  for  the  work- 


272  THE   CHIMNEY-CORNER 

ing  classes.  A  girl  trained  at  one  of  these  schools  came  into 
a  family  I  once  knew.  She  brought  with  her  a  sewing-book, 
in  which  the  process  of  making  various  articles  was  exhibited 
in  miniature.  The  several  parts  of  a  shirt  were  first  shown, 
each  perfectly  made,  and  fastened  to  a  leaf  of  the  book  by 
itself,  and  then  the  successive  steps  of  "uniting  the  parts,  till 
finally  appeared  a  miniature  model  of  the  whole.  The  sew 
ing  was  done  with  red  thread,  so  that  every  stitch  might 
show,  and  any  imperfections  be  at  once  remedied.  The  same 
process  was  pursued  with  regard  to  other  garments,  and  a 
good  general  idea  of  cutting  and  fitting  them  was  thus  given 
to  an  entire  class  of  girls. 

"  In  the  same  manner  the  care  and  nursing  of  young 
children  and  the  tending  of  the  sick  might  be  made  the  sub 
ject  of  lectures.  Every  woman  ought  to  have  some  general 
principles  to  guide  her  with  regard  to  what  is  to  be  done  in 
case  of  the  various  accidents  that  may  befall  either  children 
or  grown  people,  and  of  their  lesser  illnesses,  and  ought  to 
know  how  to  prepare  comforts  and  nourishment  for  the  sick. 
Hawthorne's  satirical  remarks  upon  the  contrast  between  the 
elegant  Zenobia's  conversation,  and  the  smoky  porridge  she 
made  for  him  when  he  was  an  invalid,  might  apply  to  the 
volunteer  cookery  of  many  charming  women.'7 

"  I  think,"  said  Bob,  "  that  your  Professor  of  Domestic 
Economy  would  find  enough  to  occupy  his  pupils." 

"  In  fact,"  said  I,  "  were  domestic  economy  properly  hon 
ored  and  properly  taught,  in  the  manner  described,  it  would 
open  a  sphere  of  employment  to  so  many  women  in  the  home 
life,  that  we  should  not  be  obliged  to  send  our  women  out 
to  California  or  the  Pacific  to  put  an  end  to  an  anxious  and 
aimless  life. 

"  When  domestic  work  is  sufficiently  honored  to  be  taught 
as  an  art  and  science  in  our  boarding-schools  and  high-schools, 
then  possibly  it  may  acquire  also  dignity  in  the  eyes  of  our 
working  classes,  and  young  girls  who  have  to  earn  their 


WOMAN'S  SPHERE  273 

own  living  may  no  longer  feel  degraded  in  engaging  in  do 
mestic  service.  The  place  of  a  domestic  in  a  family  may 
become  as  respectable  in  their  eyes  as  a  place  in  a  factory, 
in  a  printing-office,  in  a  dressmaking  or  millinery  establish 
ment,  or  behind  the  counter  of  a  shop. 

"  In  America  there  is  no  class  which  will  confess  itself 
the  lower  class,  and  a  thing  recommended  solely  for  the 
benefit  of  any  such  class  finds  no  one  to  receive  it. 

"  If  the  intelligent  and  cultivated  look  down  on  house 
hold  work  with  disdain ;  if  they  consider  it  as  degrading,  a 
thing  to  be  shunned  by  every  possible  device,  —  they  may 
depend  upon  it  that  the  influence  of  such  contempt  of 
woman's  noble  duties  will  flow  downward,  producing  a  like 
contempt  in  every  class  in  life. 

"  Our  sovereign  princesses  learn  the  doctrine  of  equality 
very  quickly,  and  are  not  going  to  sacrifice  themselves  to 
what  is  not  considered  de  bon  ton  by  the  upper  classes ; 
and  the  girl  with  the  laced  hat  and  parasol,  without  under 
clothes,  who  does  her  best  to  '  shirk '  her  duties  as  house 
maid,  and  is  looking  for  marriage  as  an  escape  from  work,  is 
a  fair  copy  of  her  mistress,  who  married  for  much  the  same 
reason,  who  hates  housekeeping,  and  would  rather  board  or 
do  anything  else  than  have  the  care  of  a  family.  The  one 
is  about  as  respectable  as  the  other. 

"  When  housekeeping  becomes  an  enthusiasm,  and  its 
study  and  practice  a  fashion,  then  we  shall  have  in  America 
that  class  of  persons  to  rely  on  for  help  in  household  labors 
who  are  now  going  to  factories,  to  printing-offices,  to  every 
kind  of  toil,  forgetful  of  the  best  life  and  sphere  of  woman." 


Ill 

A    FAMILY    TALK    ON    RECONSTRUCTION 

OUR  Chimney-Corner,  of  which  we  have  spoken  some 
what,  has,  besides  the  wonted  domestic  circle,  its  habitues 
who  have  a  frequent  seat  there.  Among  these,  none  is 
more  welcome  than  Theophilus  Thoro. 

Friend  Theophilus  was  born  on  the  shady  side  of  Nature, 
and  endowed  by  his  patron  saint  with  every  grace  and  gift 
which  can  make  a  human  creature  worthy  and  available, 
except  the  gift  of  seeing  the  bright  side  of  things.  His 
bead-roll  of  Christian  virtues  includes  all  the  graces  of  the 
spirit  except  hope ;  and  so,  if  one  wants  to  know  exactly 
the  flaw,  the  defect,  the  doubtful  side,  and  to  take  into 
account  all  the  untoward  possibilities  of  any  person,  place, 
or  thing,  he  had  best  apply  to  friend  Theophilus.  He  can 
tell  you  just  where  and  how  the  best-laid  scheme  is  likely 
to  fail,  just  the  screw  that  will  fall  loose  in  the  smoothest- 
working  machinery,  just  the  flaw  in  the  most  perfect  char 
acter,  just  the  defect  in  the  best-written  book,  just  the  vari 
ety  of  thorn  that  must  accompany  each  particular  species  of 
rose. 

Yet  Theophilus  is  without  guile  or  malice.  His  want 
of  faith  in  human  nature  is  not  bitter  and  censorious,  but 
melting  and  pitiful.  "We  are  all  poor  trash,  miserable 
dogs  together,"  he  seems  to  say,  as  he  looks  out  on  the 
world  and  its  ways.  There  is  not  much  to  be  expected  of 
or  for  any  of  us  ;  but  let  us  love  one  another  and  be  patient. 

Accordingly,  Theophilus  is  one  of  the  most  incessant 
workers  for  human  good,  and  perseveringly  busy  in  every 


A   FAMILY   TALK   ON   RECONSTRUCTION  275 

scheme  of  benevolent  enterprise,  in  all  which  he  labors  with 
melancholy  steadiness  without  hope.  In  religion  he  has 
the  soul  of  a  martyr,  —  nothing  would  suit  him  better  than 
to  be  burned  alive  for  his  faith ;  but  his  belief  in  the  suc 
cess  of  Christianity  is  about  on  a  par  with  that  of  the 
melancholy  disciple  of  old,  who,  when  Christ  would  go  to 
Judaea,  could  only  say,  "  Let  us  also  go,  that  we  may  die 
with  him."  Theophilus  is  always  ready  to  die  for  the  truth 
and  the  right,  for  which  he  never  sees  anything  but  defeat 
and  destruction  ahead. 

During  the  late  war,  Theophilus  has  been  a  despairing 
patriot,  dying  daily,  and  giving  all  up  for  lost  in  every  re 
verse  from  Bull  Run  to  Fredericksburg.  The  surrender  of 
Richmond  and  the  capitulation  of  Lee  shortened  his  visage 
somewhat ;  but  the  murder  of  the  President  soon  brought 
it  back  to  its  old  length.  It  is  true  that,  while  Lincoln 
lived,  he  was  in  a  perpetual  state  of  dissent  from  all  his 
measures.  He  had  broken  his  heart  for  years  over  the 
miseries  of  the  slaves,  but  he  shuddered  at  the  Emancipation 
Proclamation ;  a  whirlwind  of  anarchy  was  about  to  sweep 
over  the  country,  in  which  the  black  and  the  white  would 
dash  against  each  other,  and  be  shivered  like  potters'  vessels. 
He  was  in  despair  at  the  accession  of  Johnson,  believing 
the  worst  of  the  unfavorable  reports  that  clouded  his  repu 
tation.  Nevertheless  he  was  among  the  first  of  loyal  citi 
zens  to  rally  to  the  support  of  the  new  administration,  be 
cause,  though  he  had  no  hope  in  that,  he  could  see  nothing 
better. 

You  must  not  infer  from  all  this  that  friend  Theophilus 
is  a  social  wet  blanket,  a  goblin  shadow  at  the  domestic 
hearth.  By  no  means.  Nature  has  gifted  him  with  that 
vein  of  humor  and  that  impulse  to  friendly  joviality  which 
are  frequent  developments  in  sad-natured  men,  and  often 
deceive  superficial  observers  as  to  their  real  character.  He 
who  laughs  well  and  makes  you  laugh  is  often  called  a  man 


276  THE   CHIMNEY-CORNER 

of  cheerful  disposition,  yet  in  many  cases  nothing  can  be 
further  from  it  than  precisely  this  kind  of  person. 

Theophilus  frequents  our  chimney-corner,  perhaps  he- 
cause  Mrs.  Crowfield  and  myself  are,  so  to  speak,  children 
of  the  light  and  the  day.  My  wife  has  precisely  the  oppo 
site  talent  to  that  of  our  friend.  She  can  discover  the 
good  point,  the  sound  spot,  where  others  see  only  defect 
and  corruption.  I  myself  am  somewhat  sanguine,  and  prone 
rather  to  expect  good  than  evil,  and  with  a  vast  stock  of 
faith  in  the  excellent  things  that  may  turn  up  in  the  future. 
The  millennium  is  one  of  the  prime  articles  of  my  creed  ; 
and  all  the  ups  and  downs  of  society  I  regard  only  as  so 
many  jolts  on  a  very  rough  road  that  is  taking  the  world 
on,  through  many  upsets  and  disasters,  to  that  final  consum 
mation. 

Theophilus  holds  the  same  belief  theoretically  ;  but  it  is 
apt  to  sink  so  far  out  of  sight  in  the  mire  of  present  dis 
aster  as  to  be  of  very  little  comfort  to  him. 

"  Yes,"  he  said,  "  we  are  going  to  ruin,  in  my  view,  about 
as  fast  as  we  can  go.  Miss  Jenny,  I  will  trouble  you  for 
another  small  lump  of  sugar  in  my  tea." 

"  You  have  been  saying  that,  about  our  going  to  ruin, 
every  time  you  have  taken  tea  here  for  four  years  past," 
said  Jenny  ;  "  but  I  always  noticed  that  your  fears  never 
spoiled  your  relish  either  for  tea  or  muffins.  People  talk 
about  being  on  the  brink  of  a  volcano,  and  the  country 
going  to  destruction,  and  all  that,  just  as  they  put  pepper  on 
their  potatoes ;  it  is  an  agreeable  stimulant  in  conversation, 
—  that's  all." 

"  For  my  part,"  said  my  wife,  "  I  can  speak  in  another 
vein.  When  had  we  ever  in  all  our  history  so  bright  pros 
pects,  so  much  to  be  thankful  for  ?  Slavery  is  abolished ; 
the  last  stain  of  disgrace  is  wiped  from  our  national  honor. 
We  stand  now  before  the  world  self-consistent  with  our 
principles.  We  have  come  out  of  one  of  the  severest 


A  FAMILY   TALK   ON   RECONSTRUCTION  277 

struggles  that  ever  tried  a  nation,  purer  and  stronger  in 
morals  and  religion,  as  well  as  more  prosperous  in  material 
things." 

"  My  dear  madam,  excuse  me,"  said  Theophilus  ;  "  but 
I  cannot  help  being  reminded  of  what  an  English  reviewer 
once  said,  —  that  a  lady's  facts  have  as  much  poetry  in  them 
as  Tom  Moore's  lyrics.  Of  course  poetry  is  always  agree- 
ble,  even  though  of  no  statistical  value." 

"I  see  no  poetry  in  my  facts,"  said  Mrs.  Crowfield.  "Is 
not  slavery  forever  abolished,  by  the  confession  of  its  best 
friends,  —  even  of  those  who  declare  its  abolition  a  misfor 
tune,  and  themselves  ruined  in  consequence  ?  " 

"  I  confess,  my  dear  madam,  that  we  have  succeeded,  as 
we  human  creatures  commonly  do,  in  supposing  that  we 
have  destroyed  an  evil,  when  we  have  only  changed  its 
name.  We  have  contrived  to  withdraw  from  the  slave  just 
that  fiction  of  property  relation  which  made  it  for  the  inter 
est  of  some  one  to  care  for  him  a  little,  however  imperfectly  j 
and,  having  destroyed  that,  we  turn  him  out  defenseless  to 
shift  for  himself  in  a  community  every  member  of  which  is 
embittered  against  him.  The  whole  South  resounds  with 
the  outcries  of  slaves  suffering  the  vindictive  wrath  of  for 
mer  masters  ;  laws  are  being  passed  hunting  them  out  of 
this  State  and  out  of  that ;  the  animosity  of  race  —  at  all 
times  the  most  bitter  and  unreasonable  of  animosities  —  is 
being  aroused  all  over  the  land.  And  the  free  States  take 
the  lead  in  injustice  to  them.  Witness  a  late  vote  of  Con 
necticut  on  the  suffrage  question.  The  efforts  of  govern 
ment  to  protect  the  rights  of  these  poor  defenseless  creatures 
are  about  as  energetic  as  such  efforts  always  have  been  and 
always  will  be  while  human  nature  remains  what  it  is.  For 
a  while  the  obvious  rights  of  the  weaker  party  will  be  con 
fessed,  with  some  show  of  consideration,  in  public  speeches  ; 
they  will  be  paraded  by  philanthropic  sentimentalists,  to 
give  point  to  their  eloquence  ;  they  will  be  here  and  there 


278  THE    CHIMNEY-CORNER 

sustained  in  governmental  measures,  when  there  is  no  strong 
temptation  to  the  contrary,  and  nothing  better  to  be  done  ; 
but  the  moment  that  political  combinations  begin  to  be 
formed,  all  the  rights  and  interests  of  this  helpless  people 
will  be  bandied  about  as  so  many  make-weights  in  the  politi 
cal  scale.  Any  troublesome  lion  will  have  a  negro  thrown 
to  him  to  keep  him  quiet.  All  their  hopes  will  be  dashed 
to  the  ground  by  the  imperious  Southern  white,  no  longer 
feeling  for  them  even  the  interest  of  a  master,  and  regard 
ing  them  with  a  mixture  of  hatred  and  loathing  as  the 
cause  of  all  his  reverses.  Then  if,  driven  to  despair,  they 
seek  to  defend  themselves  by  force,  they  will  be  crushed  by 
the  power  of  the  government  and  ground  to  powder,  as  the 
weak  have  always  been  under  the  heel  of  the  strong. 

fl  So  much  for  our  abolition  of  slavery.  As  to  our  mate 
rial  prosperity,  it  consists  of  an  inflated  paper  currency,  an 
immense  debt,  a  giddy,  foolhardy  spirit  of  speculation  and 
stock-gambling,  and  a  perfect  furor  of  extravagance,  which 
is  driving  everybody  to  live  beyond  his  means,  and  cast 
ing  contempt  on  the  republican  virtues  of  simplicity  and 
economy. 

"  As  to  advancement  in  morals,  there  never  was  so  much 
intemperance  in  our  people  before,  and  the  papers  are  full 
of  accounts  of  frauds,  defalcations,  forgeries,  robberies, 
assassinations,  and  arsons.  Against  this  tide  of  corruption 
the  various  organized  denominations  of  religion  do  nothing 
effectual.  They  are  an  army  shut  up  within  their  own  in- 
trenchments,  holding  their  own  with  difficulty,  and  in  no 
situation  to  turn  back  the  furious  assaults  of  the  enemy." 

"  In  short,"  said  Jenny,  "  according  to  your  showing, 
the  whole  country  is  going  to  destruction.  Now,  if  things 
really  are  so  bad,  if  you  really  believe  all  you  have  been 
saying,  you  ought  not  to  be  sitting  drinking  your  tea  as  you 
are  now,  or  to  have  spent  the  afternoon  playing  croquet 
with  us  girls  ;  you  ought  to  gird  yourself  with  sackcloth, 


A   FAMILY   TALK   ON   RECONSTRUCTION  279 

and  go  up  and  down  the  land,  raising  the  alarm,  and  say 
ing,  '  Yet  forty  days  and  Nineveh  shall  be  overthrown.' '• 

"  Well,"  said  Theophilus,  while  a  covert  smile  played 
about  his  lips,  "  you  know  the  saying,  '  Let  us  eat  and. 
drink,  for  to-morrow,'  etc.  Things  are  not  yet  gone  to  de 
struction,  only  going,  —  and  why  not  have  a  good  time  on 
deck  before  the  ship  goes  to  pieces  ?  Your  chimney-corner 
is  a  tranquil  island  in  the  ocean  of  trouble,  and  your  muffins 
are  absolutely  perfect.  I  '11  take  another,  if  you  '11  please 
to  pass  them." 

"  I  've  a  great  mind  not  to  pass  them,"  said  Jenny. 
"  Are  you  in  earnest  in  what  you  are  saying,  or  are  you 
only  saying  it  for  sensation  ?  How  can  people  believe  such 
things  and  be  comfortable  ?  I  could  not.  If  I  believed  all 
you  have  been  saying  I  could  not  sleep  nights,  —  I  should 
be  perfectly  miserable  ;  and  you  cannot  really  believe  all 
this,  or  you  would  be." 

"  My  dear  child,"  said  Mrs.  Crowfield,  "  our  friend's 
picture  is  the  truth  painted  with  all  its  shadows  and  none 
of  its  lights.  All  the  dangers  he  speaks  of  are  real  and 
great,  but  he  omits  the  counterbalancing  good.  Let  me 
speak  now.  There  never  has  been  a  time  in  our  history 
when  so  many  honest  and  just  men  held  power  in  our  land 
as  now,  —  never  a  government  before  in  which  the  public 
councils  recognized  with  more  respect  the  just  and  the  right. 
There  never  was  an  instance  of  a  powerful  government  show 
ing  more  tenderness  in  the  protection  of  a  weak  and  de 
fenseless  race  than  ours  has  shown  in  the  care  of  the  freed- 
men  hitherto.  There  never  was  a  case  in  which  the  people 
of  a  country  were  more  willing  to  give  money  and  time  and 
disinterested  labor  to  raise  and  educate  those  who  have  thus 
been  thrown  on  their  care.  Considering  that  we  have  had 
a  great,  harassing,  and  expensive  war  on  our  hands,  I  think 
the  amount  done  by  government  and  individuals  for  the 
f reedmen  unequaled  in  the  history  of  nations  j  and  I  do 


280  THE   CHIMNEY-CORNER 

not  know  why  it  should  be  predicted  from  this  past  fact 
that,  in  the  future,  both  government  and  people  are  about 
to  throw  them  to  the  lions,  as  Mr.  Theophilus  supposes. 
Let  us  wait,  at  least,  and  see.  So  long  as  government 
maintains  a  freedmen's  bureau,  administered  by  men  of  such 
high  moral  character,  we  must  think,  at  all  events,  that 
there  are  strong  indications  in  the  right  direction.  Just 
think  of  the  immense  advance  of  public  opinion  within  four 
years,  and  of  the  grand  successive  steps  of  this  advance,  — 
Emancipation  in  the  District  of  Columbia,  the  Repeal  of  the 
Fugitive  Slave  Law,  the  General  Emancipation  Act,  the 
Amendment  of  the  Constitution.  All  these  do  not  look  as 
if  the  black  were  about  to  be  ground  to  powder  beneath  the 
heel  of  the  white.  If  the  negroes  are  oppressed  in  the 
South,  they  can  emigrate  ;  no  laws  hold  them ;  active,  in 
dustrious  laborers  will  soon  find  openings  in  any  part  of  the 
Union." 

"  No,"  said  Theophilus,  "  there  will  be  black  laws  like 
those  of  Illinois  and  Tennessee  ;  there  will  be  turbulent 
uprisings  of  the  Irish,  excited  by  political  demagogues,  that 
will  bar  them  out  of  Northern  States.  Besides,  as  a  class, 
they  w ill  be  idle  and  worthless.  It  will  not  be  their  fault, 
but  it  will  be  the  result  of  their  slave  education.  All  their 
past  observation  of  their  masters  has  taught  them  that  lib 
erty  means  licensed  laziness,  that  work  means  degradation  ; 
and  therefore  they  will  loathe  work,  and  cherish  laziness 
as  the  sign  of  liberty.  {  Am  not  I  free  ?  Have  I  not  as 
good  a  right  to  do  nothing  as  you  ?  '  will  be  the  cry. 

"  Already  the  lazy  whites,  who  never  lifted  a  hand  in 
any  useful  employment,  begin  to  raise  the  cry  that  ( niggers 
won't  work  ;  '  and  I  suspect  the  cry  may  not  be  without 
reason.  Industrious  citizens  can  never  be  made  in  a  com 
munity  where  the  higher  class  think  useful  labor  a  disgrace. 
The  whites  will  oppose  the  negro  in  every  effort  to  rise ; 
they  will  debar  him  of  every  civil  and  social  right ;  they 


A  FAMILY   TALK   ON   KECONSTRUCTION  281 

will  set  him  the  worst  possible  example,  as  they  have  been 
doing  for  hundreds  of  years  ;  and  then  they  will  hound  and 
hiss  at  him  for  being  what  they  made  him.  This  is  the  old 
track  of  the  world,  —  the  good,  broad,  reputable  road  on 
which  all  aristocracies  and  privileged  classes  have  been  al 
ways  traveling  ;  and  it 's  not  likely  that  we  shall  have  much 
of  a  secession  from  it.  The  millennium  is  n't  so  near-  us  as 
that,  by  a  great  deal." 

"  It 's  all  very  well  arguing  from  human  selfishness  and 
human  sin  in  that  way,"  said  I ;  "  but  you  can't  take  up  a 
newspaper  that  does  n't  contain  abundant  facts  to  the  con 
trary.  Here,  now,"  —  and  I  turned  to  the  "  Tribune,"  — 
"  is  one  item  that  fell  under  my  eye  accidentally  ?  as  you 
were  speaking  :  — 

"  ( The  Superintendent  of  Freedmen's  Affairs  in  Louisiana, 
in  making  up  his  last  Annual  Report,  says  he  bus  1,952 
blacks  settled  temporarily  on  9,650  acres  of  land,  \vho  last 
year  raised  crops  to  the  value  of  $175,000,  and  that  he 
had  but  few  worthless  blacks  under  his  care  ;  and  t,hat,  as 
a  class,  the  blacks  have  fewer  vagrants  than  can  be  found 
among  any  other  class  of  persons.' 

"  Such  testimonies  gem  the  newspapers  like  stars." 

"  Newspapers  of  your  way  of  thinking,  very  likely,"  s  aid 
Theophilus ;  "  but  if  it  comes  to  statistics,  I  can  briing 
counter-statements,  numerous  and  dire,  from  scores  o.f 
Southern  papers,  of  vagrancy,  laziness,  improvidence,  and 
wretchedness." 

"Probably  both  are  true,"  said  I,  "according  to  the 
greater  or  less  care  which  has  been  taken  of  the  blacks  in 
different  regions.  Left  to  themselves,  they  tend  downward, 
pressed  down  by  the  whole  weight  of  semi-barbarous  white 
society  ;  but  when  the  free  North  protects  and  guides,  the 
results  are  as  you  see." 

"  And  do  you  think  the  free  North  has  salt  enough  in  it 
to  save  this  whole  Southern  mass  from  corruption  ?  I  wish 


,282  THE   CHIMNEY-CORNER 

j.  could  think  so ;  but  all  I  can  see  in  the  free  North  at 
present  is  a  raging,  tearing,  headlong  chase  after  money. 
Now  money  is  of  significance  only  as  it  gives  people  the 
power  of  expressing  their  ideal  of  life.  And  what  does 
this  ideal  prove  to  be  among  us  ?  Is  it  not  to  ape  all  the 
splendors  and  vices  of  old  aristocratic  society  ?  Is  it  not  to 
be  able  to  live  in  idleness,  without  useful  employment,  a 
life  of  glitter  and  nutter  and  show  ?  What  do  our  New 
York  dames  of  fashion  seek  after  ?  To  avoid  family  care, 
to  find  servants  at  any  price  who  will  relieve  them  of  home 
responsibilities,  and  take  charge  of  their  houses  and  children 
while  thoy  shine  at  ball  and  opera,  and  drive  in  the  park. 
And  the  servants  who  learn  of  these  mistresses,  —  what  do 
they  seeK  after  ?  They  seek  also  to  get  rid  of  care,  to  live 
as  nearly  as  possible  without  work,  to  dress  and  shine  in 
their  secondary  sphere,  as  the  mistresses  do  in  the  primary 
one.  High  wages  with  little  work  and  plenty  of  company 
express  Biddy's  ideal  of  life,  which  is  a  little  more  respect 
able  thfin  that  of  her  mistress,  who  wants  high  wages  with 
no  wor  k.  The  house  and  the  children  are  not  Biddy's  ;  and 
why  should  she  care  more  for  their  well-being  than  the 
mistress  and  the  mother  ? 

"  Hence  come  wranglings  and  meanings.  Biddy  uses 
a  f  jhest  of  tea  in  three  months,  and  the  amount  of  the 
batcher's  bill  is  fabulous ;  Jane  gives  the  baby  laudanum 
Jco  quiet  it,  while  she  slips  out  to  her  parties ;  and  the 
upper  classes  are  shocked  at  the  demoralized  state  of  the 
Irish,  their  utter  want  of  faithfulness  and  moral  principle  ! 
How  dreadful  that  there  are  no  people  who  enjoy  the  self- 
denials  and  the  cares  which  they  dislike,  that  there  are  no 
people  who  rejoice  in  carrying  that  burden  of  duties  which 
they  do  not  wish  to  touch  with  one  of  their  fingers  !  The 
outcry  about  the  badness  of  servants  means  just  this :  that 
everybody  is  tired  of  self  -  helpfulness,  —  the  servants  as 
thoroughly  as  the  masters  and  mistresses.  All  want  the 


A   FAMILY   TALK    ON   RECONSTRUCTION  283 

cream  of  life,  without  even  the  trouble  of  skimming  ;  and 
the  great  fight  now  is,  who  shall  drink  the  skim-milk,  which 
nobody  wants.  Work,  —  honorable  toil,  —  manly,  womanly 
endeavor,  —  is  just  what  nobody  likes  ;  and  this  is  as  much 
a  fact  in  the  free  North  as  in  the  slave  South. 

"  What  are  all  the  young  girls  looking  for  in  marriage  ? 
Some  man  with  money  enough  to  save  them  from  taking 
any  care  or  having  any  trouble  in  domestic  life,  enabling 
them,  like  the  lilies  of  the  field,  to  rival  Solomon  in  all 
his  glory,  while  they  toil  not,  neither  do  they  spin  ;  and 
when  they  find  that  even  money  cannot  purchase  freedom 
from  care  in  family  life,  because  their  servants  are  exactly 
of  the  same  mind  with  themselves,  and  hate  to  do  their 
duties  as  cordially  as  they  themselves  do,  then  are  they 
in  anguish  of  spirit,  and  wish  for  slavery,  or  aristocracy, 
or  anything  that  would  give  them  power  over  the  lower 
classes." 

"  But  surely,  Mr.  Theophilus,"  said  Jenny,  "  there  is  no 
sin  in  disliking  trouble,  and  wanting  to  live  easily  and 
have  a  good  time  in  one's  life,  —  it 's  so  very  natural.'7 

"  No  sin,  my  dear,  I  admit;  but  there  is  a  certain  amount 
of  work  and  trouble  that  somebody  must  take  to  carry  on 
the  family  and  the  world ;  and  the  mischief  is,  that  all  are 
agreed  in  wanting  to  get  rid  of  it.  Human  nature  is  above 
all  things  lazy.  I  am  lazy  myself.  Everybody  is.  The 
whole  struggle  of  society  is  as  to  who  shall  eat  the  hard 
bread-and-cheese  of  labor,  which  must  be  eaten  by  some 
body.  Nobody  wants  it,  —  neither  you  in  the  parlor,  nor 
Biddy  in  the  kitchen. 

"  i  The  mass  ought  to  labor,  and  we  lie  on  sofas,'  is  a  sen 
tence  that  would  unite  more  subscribers  than  any  confession 
of  faith  that  ever  was  presented,  whether  religious  or  poli 
tical  ;  and  its  subscribers  would  be  as  numerous  and  sincere 
in  the  free  States  as  in  the  slave  States,  or  I  am  much 
mistaken  in  my  judgment.  The  negroes  are  men  and  wo- 


284  THE    CHIMNEY-CORNER 

men,  like  any  of  the  rest  of  us,  and  particularly  apt  in  the 
imitation  of  the  ways  and  ideas  current  in  good  society ; 
and  consequently  to  learn  to  play  on  the  piano  and  to  have 
nothing  in  particular  to  do  will  be  the  goal  of  aspiration 
among  colored  girls  and  women,  and  to  do  housework  will 
seem  to  them  intolerable  drudgery,  simply  because  it  is  so 
among  the  fair  models  to  whom  they  look  up  in  humble 
admiration.  You  see,  my  dear,  what  it  is  to  live  in  a  de 
mocracy.  It  deprives  us  of  the  vantage-ground  on  which 
we  cultivated  people  can  stand  and  say  to  our  neighbor,  — 
'  The  cream  is  for  me,  and  the  skim-milk  for  you ;  the 
white  bread  for  me,  and  the  brown  for  you.  I  am  born 
to  amuse  myself  and  have  a  good  time,  and  you  are  born 
to  do  everything  that  is  tiresome  and  disagreeable  to  me.' 
The  '  My  Lady  Ludlows  '  of  the  Old  World  can  stand  on 
their  platform  and  lecture  the  lower  classes  from  the  Church 
Catechism,  to  (  order  themselves  lowly  and  reverently  to  all 
their  betters ; '  and  they  can  base  their  exhortations  on  the 
old  established  law  of  society  by  which  some  are  born  to 
inherit  the  earth,  and  live  a  life  of  ease  and  pleasure,  and 
others  to  toil  without  pleasure  or  amusement,  for  their 
support  and  aggrandizement.  An  aristocracy,  as  I  take  it, 
is  a  combination  of  human  beings  to  divide  life  into  two 
parts,  one  of  which  shall  comprise  all  social  and  moral  ad 
vantages,  refinement,  elegance,  leisure,  ease,  pleasure,  and 
amusement,  —  and  the  other,  incessant  toil,  with  the  ab 
sence  of  every  privilege  and  blessing  of  human  existence. 
Life  thus  divided,  we  aristocrats  keep  the  good  for  our 
selves  and  our  children,  and  distribute  the  evil  as  the  lot 
of  the  general  mass  of  mankind.  The  desire  to  monopo 
lize  and  to  dominate  is  the  most  rooted  form  of  human 
selfishness ;  it  is  the  hydra  with  many  heads,  and,  cut  off 
in  one  place,  it  puts  out  in  another. 

"  Nominally,  the  great  aristocratic  arrangement  of  Amer 
ican  society  has  just  been  destroyed ;   but  really,  I  take  it, 


A   FAMILY   TALK   ON   RECONSTRUCTION  285 

the  essential  animus  of  the  slave  system  still  exists,  and 
pervades  the  community,  North  as  well  as  South.  Every 
body  is  wanting  to  get  the  work  done  by  somebody  else, 
and  to  take  the  money  himself ;  the  grinding  between  em 
ployers  and  employed  is  going  on  all  the  time,  and  the  field 
of  controversy  has  only  been  made  wider  by  bringing  in  a 
whole  new  class  of  laborers.  The  Irish  have  now  the  op 
portunity  to  sustain  their  aristocracy  over  the  negro.  Shall 
they  not  have  somebody  to  look  down  upon  ? 

"  All  through  free  society,  employers  and  employed  are 
at  incessant  feud ;  and  the  more  free  and  enlightened  the 
society,  the  more  bitter  the  feud.  The  standing  complaint 
of  life  in  America  is  the  badness  of  servants  ;  and  England, 
which  always  follows  at  a  certain  rate  behind  us  in  our 
social  movements,  is  beginning  to  raise  very  loudly  the  same 
complaint.  The  condition  of  service  has  been  thought 
worthy  of  public  attention  in  some  of  the  leading  British 
prints ;  and  Ruskin,  in  a  summing-up  article,  speaks  of  it 
as  a  deep  ulcer  in  society,  — a  thing  hopeless  of  remedy." 

"  My  dear  Mr.  Theophilus,"  said  my  wife,  "  I  cannot 
imagine  whither  you  are  rambling,  or  to  what  purpose  you 
are  getting  up  these  horrible  shadows.  You  talk  of  the 
world  as  if  there  were  no  God  in  it,  overruling  the  selfish 
ness  of  men,  and  educating  it  up  to  order  and  justice.  I  do 
not  deny  that  there  is  a  vast  deal  of  truth  in  what  you  say. 
Nobody  doubts  that,  in  general,  human  nature  is  selfish, 
callous,  unfeeling,  willing  to  engross  all  good  to  itself,  and 
to  trample  on  the  rights  of  others.  Nevertheless,  thanks 
to  God's  teaching  and  fatherly  care,  the  world  has  worked 
along  to  the  point  of  a  great  nation  founded  on  the  principles 
of  strict  equality,  forbidding  all  monopolies,  aristocracies, 
privileged  classes,  by  its  very  constitution  ;  and  now,  by 
God's  wonderful  providence,  this  nation  has  been  brought, 
and  forced,  as  it  were,  to  overturn  and  abolish  the  only 
aristocratic  institution  that  interfered  with  its  free  develop- 


286  THE   CHIMNEY-CORNER 

ment.  Does  not  this  look  as  if  a  Mightier  Power  than  ours 
were  working  in  and  for  us,  supplementing  our  weakness 
and  infirmity  ?  and  if  we  believe  that  man  is  always  ready 
to  drop  everything  and  let  it  run  back  to  evil,  shall  we  not 
have  faith  that  God  will  not  drop  the  noble  work  he  has  so 
evidently  taken  in  hand  in  this  nation  ?  " 

"  And  I  want  to  know,"  said  Jenny,  "  why  your  illustra 
tions  of  selfishness  are  all  drawn  from  the  female  sex.  Why 
do  you  speak  of  girls  that  marry  for  money,  any  more  than 
men  ?  of  mistresses  of  families  that  want  to  be  free  from 
household  duties  and  responsibilities,  rather  than  of  mas 
ters  ?  " 

"  My  charming  young  lady,"  said  Theophilus,  "  it  is  a 
fact  that  in  America,  except  the  slaveholders,  women  have 
hitherto  been  the  only  aristocracy.  Women  have  been  the 
privileged  class,  —  the  only  one  to  which  our  rough  demo 
cracy  has  always  and  everywhere  given  the  precedence,  — 
and  consequently  the  vices  of  aristocrats  are  more  developed 
in  them  as  a  class  than  among  men.  The  leading  principle 
of  aristocracy,  which  is  to  take  pay  without  work,  to  live 
on  the  toils  and  earnings  of  others,  is  one  which  obtains 
more  generally  among  women  than  among  men  in  this 
country.  The  men  of  our  country,  as  a  general  thing,  even 
in  our  uppermost  classes,  always  propose  to  themselves  some 
work  or  business  by  which  they  may  acquire  a  fortune,  or 
enlarge  that  already  made  for  them  by  their  fathers.  The 
women  of  the  same  class  propose  to  themselves  nothing  but 
to  live  at  their  ease  on  the  money  made  for  them  by  the 
labors  of  fathers  and  husbands.  As  a  consequence,  they 
become  enervated  and  indolent,  —  averse  to  any  bracing, 
wholesome  effort,  either  mental  or  physical.  The  unavoid 
able  responsibilities  and  cares  of  a  family,  instead  of  being 
viewed  by  them  in  the  light  of  a  noble  life  work,  in  which 
they  do  their  part  in  the  general  labors  of  the  world,  seem 
to  them  so  many  injuries  and  wrongs ;  they  seek  to  turn 


A   FAMILY   TALK    ON   RECONSTRUCTION  287 

them  upon  servants,  and  find  servants  unwilling  to  take 
them ;  and  so  selfish  are  they,  that  I  have  heard  more  than 
one  lady  declare  that  she  did  n't  care  if  it  was  unjust,  she 
should  like  to  have  slaves,  rather  than  be  plagued  with  ser 
vants  who  had  so  much  liberty.  All  the  novels,  poetry, 
and  light  literature  of  the  world,  which  form  the  general 
staple  of  female  reading,  are  based  upon  aristocratic  institu 
tions,  and  impregnated  with  aristocratic  ideas ;  and  women 
among  us  are  constantly  aspiring  to  foreign  and  aristocratic 
modes  of  life  rather  than  to  those  of  native  republican  sim 
plicity.  How  many  women  are  there,  think  you,  that  would 
not  go  in  for  aristocracy  and  aristocratic  prerogatives,  if  they 
were  only  sure  that  they  themselves  should  be  of  the  privi 
leged  class  ?  To  be  '  My  Lady  Duchess,'  and  to  have  a 
right  by  that  simple  title  to  the  prostrate  deference  of  all 
the  lower  orders  !  How  many  would  have  firmness  to  vote 
against  such  an  establishment  merely  because  it  was  bad 
for  society  ?  Tell  the  fair  Mrs.  Feathercap,  '  In  order  that 
you  may  be  a  duchess,  and  have  everything  a  paradise  of 
elegance  and  luxury  around  you  and  your  children,  a  hun 
dred  poor  families  must  have  no  chance  for  anything  better 
than  black  bread  and  muddy  water  all  their  lives,  a  hundred 
poor  men  must  work  all  their  lives  on  such  wages  that  a 
fortnight's  sickness  will  send  their  families  to  the  almshouse, 
and  that  no  amount  of  honesty  and  forethought  can  lay  up 
any  provision  for  old  age.' ': 

"  Come  now,  sir,"  said  Jenny,  "  don't  tell  me  that  there 
are  any  girls  or  women  so  mean  and  selfish  as  to  want  aris 
tocracy  or  rank  so  purchased !  You  are  too  bad,  Mr.  Theo- 
philus ! " 

"  Perhaps  they  might  not,  were  it  stated  in  just  these 
terms ;  yet  I  think,  if  the  question  of  the  establishment  of 
an  order  of  aristocracy  among  us  were  put  to  vote,  we  should 
find  more  women  than  men  who  would  go  for  it ;  and  they 
would  flout  at  the  consequences  to  society  with  the  lively 


288  THE   CHIMNEY-CORNER 

wit  and  the  musical  laugh  which  make  feminine  selfishness 
so  genteel  and  agreeable. 

"  No !  It  is  a  fact  that  in  America,  the  women,  in  the 
wealthy  classes,  are  like  the  noblemen  of  aristocracies,  and 
the  men  are  the  workers.  And  in  all  this  outcry  that  has 
been  raised  about  women's  wages  being  inferior  to  those 
of  men  there  is  one  thing  overlooked,  —  and  that  is,  that 
women's  work  is  generally  inferior  to  that  of  men,  because 
in  every  rank  they  are  the  pets  of  society  and  are  excused 
from  the  laborious  drill  and  training  by  which  men  are  fitted 
for  their  callings.  Our  fair  friends  come  in  generally  by 
some  royal  road  to  knowledge,  which  saves  them  the  dire  ne 
cessity  of  real  work,  —  a  sort  of  feminine  hop-skip-and-jump 
into  science  or  mechanical  skill,  —  nothing  like  the  uncom 
promising  hard  labor  to  which  the  boy  is  put  who  would  be 
a  mechanic  or  farmer,  a  lawyer  or  physician. 

"  I  admit  freely  that  we  men  are  to  blame  for  most  of 
the  faults  of  our  fair  nobility.  There  is  plenty  of  heroism, 
abundance  of  energy,  and  love  of  noble  endeavor  lying  dor 
mant  in  these  sheltered  and  petted  daughters  of  the  better 
classes  ;  but  we  keep  it  down  and  smother  it.  Fathers  and 
brothers  think  it  discreditable  to  themselves  not  to  give 
their  daughters  and  sisters  the  means  of  living  in  idleness ; 
and  any  adventurous  fair  one,  who  seeks  to  end  the  ennui  of 
utter  aimlessness  by  applying  herself  to  some  occupation 
whereby  she  may  earn  her  own  living,  infallibly  draws  down 
on  her  the  comments  of  her  whole  circle  :  (  Keeping  school, 
is  she  ?  Is  n't  her  father  rich  enough  to  support  her  ? 
What  could  possess  her  ?  ' ; 

"  I  am  glad,  my  dear  Sir  Oracle,  that  you  are  beginning 
to  recollect  yourself  and  temper  your  severities  on  our  sex," 
said  my  wife.  "  As  usual,  there  is  much  truth  lying  about 
loosely  in  the  vicinity  of  your  assertions ;  but  they  are  as 
far  from  being  in  themselves  the  truth  as  would  be  their 
exact  opposites. 


A   FAMILY   TALK   ON   RECONSTRUCTION  289 

"  The  class  of  American  women  who  travel,  live  abroad, 
and  represent  our  country  to  the  foreign  eye,  have  acquired 
the  reputation  of  being  Sybarites  in  luxury  and  extrava 
gance,  and  there  is  much  in  the  modes  of  life  that  are  creep 
ing  into  our  richer  circles  to  justify  this. 

"  Miss  Murray,  ex-maid-of-honor  to  the  Queen  of  Eng 
land,  among  other  impressions  which  she  received  from  an 
extended  tour  through  our  country,  states  it  as  her  convic 
tion  that  young  American  girls  of  the  better  classes  are  less 
helpful  in  nursing  the  sick  and  in  the  general  duties  of 
family  life  than  the  daughters  of  the  aristocracy  of  England  ; 
and  I  am  inclined  to  believe  it,  because  even  the  Queen  has 
taken  special  pains  to  cultivate  habits  of  energy  and  self- 
helpfulness  in  her  children.  One  of  the  toys  of  the 
Princess  Royal  was  said  to  be  a  cottage  of  her  own,  fur 
nished  with  every  accommodation  for  cooking  and  housekeep 
ing,  where  she  from  time  to  time  enacted  the  part  of  house 
keeper,  making  bread  and  biscuit,  boiling  potatoes  which 
she  herself  had  gathered  from  her  own  garden-patch,  and 
inviting  her  royal  parents  to  meals  of  her  own  preparing  ; 
and  report  says,  that  the  dignitaries  of  the  German  court 
have  been  horrified  at  the  energetic  determination  of  the 
young  royal  housekeeper  to  overlook  her  own  linen  closets 
and  attend  to  her  own  affairs.  But  as  an  offset  to  what  I 
have  been  saying,  it  must  be  admitted  that  America  is  a 
country  where  a  young  woman  can  be  self-supporting  with 
out  forfeiting  her  place  in  society.  All  our  New  England 
and  Western  towns  show  us  female  teachers  who  are  as  well 
received  and  as  much  caressed  in  society,  and  as  often  con 
tract  advantageous  marriages,  as  any  women  whatever ;  and 
the  productive  labor  of  American  women,  in  various  arts, 
trades,  and  callings,  would  be  found,  I  think,  not  inferior 
to  that  of  any  women  in  the  world. 

"Furthermore,  the  history  of  the  late  war  has  shown 
them  capable  of  every  form  of  heroic  endeavor.  We  have 


290  THE    CHIMNEY-CORNER 

had  hundreds  of  Florence  Nightingales,  and  an  amount  of 
real  hard  work  has  been  done  by  female  hands  not  inferior 
to  that  performed  by  men  in  the  camp  and  field,  and  enough 
to  make  sure  that  American  womanhood  is  not  yet  so  ener 
vated  as  seriously  to  interfere  with  the  prospects  of  free 
republican  society." 

"  I  wonder,"  said  Jenny,  "  what  it  is  in  our  country 
that  spoils  the  working  classes  that  come  into  it.  They  say 
that  the  emigrants,  as  they  land  here,  are  often  simple- 
hearted  people,  willing  to  work,  accustomed  to  early  hours 
and  plain  living,  decorous  and  respectful  in  their  manners. 
It  would  seem  as  if  aristocratic  drilling  had  done  them 
good.  In  a  f Aw  months  they  become  brawling,  impertinent, 
grasping,  want  high  wages,  and  are  very  unwilling  to  work. 
I  went  to  several  intelligence-offices  the  other  day  to  look 
for  a  girl  for  Marianne,  and  I  thought,  by  the  way  the  can 
didates  catechized  the  ladies,  and  the  airs  they  took  upon 
them,  that  they  considered  themselves  the  future  mistresses 
interrogating  their  subordinates. 

"  '  Does  ye  expect  me  to  do  the  washin'  with  the  cookin'  ?  ' 

"  <  Yes.' 

"  '  Thin  I  '11  niver  go  to  that  place  ! ' 

"  i  And  does  ye  expect  me  to  get  the  early  breakfast  for 
yer  husband  to  be  off  in  the  train  every  mornin'  ? ' 

"  <  Yes.' 

"  ( I  niver  does  that,  —  that  ought  to  be  a  second  girl's 
work.' 

"  '  How  many  servants  does  ye  keep,  ma'am  ?  ' 

"  '  Two.' 

"  '  I  niver  lives  with  people  that  keeps  but  two  servants.7 

"  '  How  many  has  ye  in  yer  family  ?  ' 

«  '  Seven.' 

"  '  That 's  too  large  a  family.     Has  ye  much  company  ?  " 

"  '  Yes,  we  have  company  occasionally.' 

"  '  Thin  I  can't  come  to  ye  ;  it  '11  be  too  hand  a  place.' 


A   FAMILY   TALK   ON   RECONSTRUCTION  291 

"  In  fact,  the  thing  they  were  all  in  quest  of  seemed  to 
be  a  very  small  family,  with  very  high  wages,  and  many 
perquisites  and  privileges. 

"  This  is  the  kind  of  work-people  our  manners  and  insti 
tutions  make  of  people  that  come  over  here.  I  remember 
one  day  seeing  a  coachman  touch  his  cap  to  his  mistress 
when  she  spoke  to  him,  as  is  the  way  in  Europe,  and  hear 
ing  one  or  two  others  saying  among  themselves,  — 

"  '  That  chap  's  a  greenie  ;   he  '11  get  over  that  soon.' '; 

"  All  these  things  show,"  said  I,  "  that  the  staff  of  power 
has  passed  from  the  hands  of  gentility  into  those  of  labor. 
We  may  think  the  working  classes  somewhat  unseemly  in 
their  assertion  of  self-importance  ;  but,  after  all,  are  they, 
considering  their  inferior  advantages  of  breeding,  any  more 
overbearing  and  impertinent  than  the  upper  classes  have 
always  been  to  them  in  all  ages  and  countries  ? 

"  When  Biddy  looks  long,  hedges  in  her  work  with  many 
conditions,  and  is  careful  to  get  the  most  she  can  for  the 
least  labor,  is  she,  after  all,  doing  any  more  than  you  or  I 
or  all  the  rest  of  the  world  ?  I  myself  will  not  write  arti 
cles  for  five  dollars  a  page,  when  there  are  those  who  will 
give  me  fifteen.  I  would  not  do  double  duty  as  an  editor 
on  a  salary  of  seven  thousand,  when  I  could  get  ten  thou 
sand  for  less  work. 

"  Biddy  and  her  mistress  are  two  human  beings,  with 
the  same  human  wants.  Both  want  to  escape  trouble,  to 
make  their  life  comfortable  and  easy,  with  the  least  outlay 
of  expense.  Biddy's  capital  is  her  muscles  and  sinews  ;  and 
she  wants  to  get  as  many  greenbacks  in  exchange  for  them 
as  her  wit  and  shrewdness  will  enable  her  to  do.  You  feel, 
when  you  bargain  with  her,  that  she  is  nothing  to  you,  ex 
cept  so  far  as  her  strength  and  knowledge  may  save  you 
care  and  trouble  ;  and  she  feels  that  you  are  nothing  to 
her,  except  so  far  as  she  can  get  your  money  for  her  work. 
The  free-and-easy  airs  of  those  seeking  employment  show 


292  THE   CHIMNEY-CORNER 

one  thing,  —  that  the  country  in  general  is  prosperous,  and 
that  openings  for  profitable  employment  are  so  numerous 
that  it  is  not  thought  necessary  to  try  to  conciliate  favor. 
If  the  community  were  at  starvation-point,  and  the  loss  of 
a  situation  brought  fear  of  the  almshouse,  the  laboring-class 
would  be  more  subservient.  As  it  is,  there  is  a  little  spice 
of  the  bitterness  of  a  past  age  of  servitude  in  their  present 
attitude,  —  a  bristling,  self-defensive  impertinence,  which 
will  gradually  smooth  away  as  society  learns  to  accommo 
date  itself  to  the  new  order  of  things." 

"  Well,  but,  papa,"  said  Jenny,  "  don't  you  think  all 
this  a  very  severe  test,  if  applied  to  us  women  particularly, 
more  than  to  the  men  ?  Mr.  Theophilus  seems  to  think 
women  are  aristocrats,  and  go  for  enslaving  the  lower  classes 
out  of  mere  selfishness  ;  but  I  say  that  we  are  a  great  deal 
more  strongly  tempted  than  men,  because  all  these  annoy 
ances  and  trials  of  domestic  life  come  upon  us.  It  is  very 
insidious,  the  aristocratic  argument,  as  it  appeals  to  us  ; 
there  seems  much  to  be  said  in  its  favor.  It  does  appear 
to  me  that  it  is  better  to  have  servants  and  work-people 
tidy,  industrious,  respectful,  and  decorous,  as  they  are  in 
Europe,  than  domineering,  impertinent,  and  negligent,  as 
they  are  here,  —  and  it  seems  that  there  is  something  in 
our  institutions  that  produces  these  disagreeable  traits  ;  and 
I  presume  that  the  negroes  will  eventually  be  traveling  the 
same  road  as  the  Irish,  and  from  the  same  influences. 

"  When  people  see  all  these  things,  and  feel  all  the  in 
conveniences  of  them,  I  don't  wonder  that  they  are  tempted 
not  to  like  democracy,  and  to  feel  as  if  aristocratic  institu 
tions  made  a  more  agreeable  state  of  society.  It  is  not  such 
a  blank,  bald,  downright  piece  of  brutal  selfishness  as  Mr. 
Theophilus  there  seems  to  suppose,  for  us  to  wish  there 
were  some  quiet,  submissive,  laborious  lower  class,  who 
would  be  content  to  work  for  kind  treatment  and  moderate 
wages." 


A   FAMILY    TALK   ON   RECONSTRUCTION  293 

"  But,  my  little  dear/'  said  I,  "  the  matter  is  not  left  to 
our  choice.  Wish  it  or  not  wish  it,  it 's  what  we  evidently 
can't  have.  The  day  for  that  thing  is  past.  The  power  is 
passing  out  of  the  hands  of  the  cultivated  few  into  those  of 
the  strong,  laborious  many.  Numbers  is  the  king  of  our 
era  j  and  he  will  reign  over  us,  whether  we  will  hear  or 
whether  we  will  forbear.  The  sighers  for  an  obedient  lower 
class  and  the  mourners  for  slavery  may  get  ready  their  crape 
and  have  their  pocket-handkerchiefs  bordered  with  black; 
for  they  have  much  weeping  to  do,  and  for  many  years  to 
come.  The  good  old  feudal  times,  when  two  thirds  of  the 
population  thought  themselves  born  only  for  the  honor, 
glory,  and  profit. of  the  other  third,  are  gone,  with  all  their 
beautiful  devotions,  all  their  trappings  of  song  and  story. 
In  the  land  where  such  institutions  were  most  deeply  rooted 
and  most  firmly  established,  they  are  assailed  every  day  by 
hard  hands  and  stout  hearts ;  and  their  position  resembles 
that  of  some  of  the  picturesque  ruins  of  Italy,  which  are 
constantly  being  torn  away  to  build  prosaic  modern  shops 
and  houses. 

"  This  great  democratic  movement  is  coming  down  into 
modern  society  with  a  march  as  irresistible  as  the  glacier 
moves  down  from  the  mountains.  Its  front  is  in  America, 
—  and  behind  are  England,  France,  Italy,  Prussia,  and  the 
Mohammedan  countries.  In  all,  the  rights  of  the  laboring 
masses  are  a  living  force,  bearing  slowly  and  inevitably  all 
before  it.  Our  war  has  been  a  marshaling  of  its  armies, 
commanded  by  a  hard-handed,  inspired  man  of  the  working- 
class.  An  intelligent  American,  recently  resident  in  Egypt, 
says  it  was  affecting  to  notice  the  interest  with  which  the 
working  classes  there  were  looking  upon  our  late  struggle  in 
America,  and  the  earnestness  of  their  wishes  for  the  tri 
umph  of  the  Union.  ( It  is  our  cause,  it  is  for  us,'  they 
said,  as  said  the  cotton  spinners  of  England  and  the  silk 
weavers  of  Lyons.  The  forces  of  this  mighty  movement  are 


294  THE   CHIMNEY-CORNER 

still  directed  by  a  man  from  the  lower  orders,  the  sworn  foe 
of  exclusive  privileges  and  landed  aristocracies.  If  Andy 
Johnson  is  consistent  with  himself,  with  the  principles 
which  raised  him  from  a  tailor's  bench  to  the  head  of  a 
mighty  nation,  he  will  see  to  it  that  the  work  that  Lincoln 
began  is  so  thoroughly  done,  that  every  man  and  every 
woman  in  America,  of  whatever  race  or  complexion,  shall 
have  exactly  equal  rights  before  the  law,  and  be  free  to  rise 
or  fall  according  to  their  individual  intelligence,  industry, 
and  moral  worth.  So  long  as  everything  is  not  strictly 
in  accordance  with  our  principles  of  democracy,  so  long  as 
there  is  in  any  part  of  the  country  an  aristocratic  upper 
class  who  despise  labor,  and  a  laboring  lower  class  that  is 
denied  equal  political  rights,  so  long  this  grinding  and  dis 
cord  between  the  two  will  never  cease  in  America.  It  will 
make  trouble  not  only  in  the  South,  but  in  the  North,  — 
trouble  between  all  employers  and  employed,  —  trouble  in 
every  branch  and  department  of  labor,  —  trouble  in  every 
parlor  and  every  kitchen. 

"  What  is  it  that  has  driven  every  American  woman  out 
of  domestic  service,  when  domestic  service  is  full  as  well 
paid,  is  easier,  healthier,  and  in  many  cases  far  more  agree 
able,  than  shop  and  factory  work  ?  It  is,  more  than  any 
thing  else,  the  influence  of  slavery  in  the  South,  —  its  in 
sensible  influence  on  the  minds  of  mistresses,  giving  them 
false  ideas  of  what  ought  to  be  the  position  and  treatment 
of  a  female  citizen  in  domestic  service,  and  its  very  marked 
influence  on  the  minds  of  freedom-loving  Americans,  causing 
them  to  choose  any  position-  rather  than  one  which  is  re 
garded  as  assimilating  them  to  slaves.  It  is  difficult  to  say 
what  are  the  very  worst  results  of  a  system  so  altogether 
bad  as  that  of  slavery ;  but  one  of  the  worst  is  certainly  the 
utter  contempt  it  brings  on  useful  labor,  and  the  consequent 
utter  physical  and  moral  degradation  of  a  large  body  of  the 
whites  ;  and  this  contempt  of  useful  labor  has  been  con- 


A   FAMILY   TALK    ON   KECONSTRUCTION  295 

stantly  spreading  like  an  infection  from  the  Southern  to  the 
Northern  States,  particularly  among  women,  who,  as  our 
friend  here  has  truly  said,  are  by  our  worship  and  exalta 
tion  of  them  made  peculiarly  liable  to  take  the  malaria  of 
aristocratic  society.  Let  anybody  observe  the  conversation 
in  good  society  for  an  hour  or  two,  and  hear  the  tone  in 
which  servant-girls,  seamstresses,  mechanics,  and  all  who 
work  for  their  living,  are  sometimes  mentioned,  and  he  will 
see  that,  while  every  one  of  the  speakers  professes  to  regard 
useful  labor  as  respectable,  she  is  yet  deeply  imbued  with 
the  leaven  of  aristocratic  ideas. 

"  In  the  South  the  contempt  for  labor  bred  of  slavery 
has  so  permeated  society,  that  we  see  great,  coarse,  vulgar 
lazzaroni  lying  about  in  rags  and  vermin,  and  dependent 
on  government  rations,  maintaining,  as  their  only  source  of 
self-respect,  that  they  never  have  done  and  never  will  do  a 
stroke  of  useful  work  in  all  their  lives.  In  the  North  there 
are,  I  believe,  no  men  who  would  make  such  a  boast ;  but  I 
think  there  are  many  women  —  beautiful,  fascinating  laz- 
zaroni  of  the  parlor  and  boudoir  —  who  make  their  boast 
of  elegant  helplessness  and  utter  incompetence  for  any  of 
woman's  duties  with  equal  naivete.  The  Spartans  made 
their  slaves  drunk,  to  teach  their  children  the  evils  of  intoxi 
cation  ;  and  it  seems  to  be  the  policy  of  a  large  class  in  the 
South  now  to  keep  down  and  degrade  the  only  working 
class  they  have,  for  the  sake  of  teaching  their  children  to 
despise  work. 

"  We  of  the  North,  who  know  the  dignity  of  labor,  who 
know  the  value  of  free  and  equal  institutions,  who  have  en 
joyed  advantages  for  seeing  their  operation,  ought,  in  true 
brotherliness,  to  exercise  the  power  given  us  by  the  present 
position  of  the  people  of  the  Southern  States,  and  put  things 
thoroughly  right  for  them,  well  knowing,  that,  though  they 
may  not  like  it  at  the  moment,  they  will  like  it  in  the  end, 
and  that  it  will  bring  them  peace,  plenty,  and  settled  pros- 


296  THE   CHIMNEY-CORNER 

perity,  such  as  they  have  long  envied  here  in  the  North.  It 
is  no  kindness  to  an  invalid  brother,  half  recovered  from 
delirium,  to  leave  him  a  knife  to  cut  his  throat  with,  should 
he  be  so  disposed.  We  should  rather  appeal  from  Philip 
drunk  to  Philip  sober,  and  do  real  kindness,  trusting  to  the 
future  for  our  meed  of  gratitude. 

"  Giving  equal  political  rights  to  all  the  inhabitants  of 
the  Southern  States  will  be  their  shortest  way  to  quiet  and 
to  wealth.  It  will  avert  what  is  else  almost  certain,  —  a 
war  of  races ;  since  all  experience  shows  that  the  ballot  in 
troduces  the  very  politest  relations  between  the  higher  and 
lower  classes.  If  the  right  be  restricted,  let  it  be  by  require 
ments  of  property  and  education,  applying  to  all  the  popu 
lation  equally. 

"  Meanwhile,  we  citizens  and  citizenesses  of  the  North 
should  remember  that  Reconstruction  means  something  more 
than  setting  things  right  in  the  Southern  States.  We  have 
saved  our  government  and  institutions,  but  we  have  paid  a 
fearful  price  for  their  salvation  ;  and  we  ought  to  prove  now 
that  they  are  worth  the  price. 

"  The  empty  chair,  never  to  be  filled  ;  the  light  gone  out 
on  its  candlestick,  never  on  earth  to  be  rekindled ;  gallant 
souls  that  have  exhaled  to  heaven  in  slow  torture  and  star 
vation  ;  the  precious  blood  that  has  drenched  a  hundred 
battlefields,  —  all  call  to  us  with  warning  voices,  and  tell  us 
not  to  let  such  sacrifices  be  in  vain.  They  call  on  us  by 
our  clear  understanding  of  the  great  principles  of  democratic 
equality,  for  which  our  martyred  brethren  suffered  and  died, 
to  show  to  all  the  world  that  their  death  was  no  mean  and 
useless  waste,  but  a  glorious  investment  for  the  future  of 
mankind. 

"  This  war,  these  sufferings,  these  sacrifices,  ought  to 
make  every  American  man  and  woman  look  on  himself  and 
herself  as  belonging  to  a  royal  priesthood,  a  peculiar  people. 
The  blood  of  our  slain  ought  to  be  a  gulf,  wide  and  deep  as  the 


A  FAMILY   TALK   ON   RECONSTRUCTION  297 

Atlantic,  dividing  us  from  the  opinions  and  the  practices  of 
countries  whose  government  and  society  are  founded  on  other 
and  antagonistic  ideas.  Democratic  republicanism  has  never 
yet  been  perfectly  worked  out  either  in  this  or  any  other 
country.  It  is  a  splendid  edifice,  half  built,  deformed  by 
rude  scaffolding,  noisy  with  the  clink  of  trowels,  blinding 
the  eyes  with  the  dust  of  lime,  and  endangering  our  heads 
with  falling  brick.  We  make  our  way  over  heaps  of  shav 
ings  and  lumber  to  view  the  stately  apartments,  —  we  en 
danger  our  necks  in  climbing  ladders  standing  in  the  place 
of  future  staircases ;  but  let  us  not  for  all  this  cry  out  that 
the  old  rat-holed  mansions  of  former  ages,  with  their  mould, 
and  moss,  and  cockroaches,  are  better  than  this  new  palace. 
There  is  no  lime-dust,  no  clink  of  trowels,  no  rough  scaffold 
ing  there,  to  be  sure,  and  life  goes  on  very  quietly  ;  but  there 
is  the  foul  air  of  slow  and  sure  decay. 

ec  Republican  institutions  in  America  are  in  a  transition 
state  ;  they  have  not  yet  separated  themselves  from  foreign 
and  antagonistic  ideas  and  traditions,  derived  from  old  coun 
tries  ;  and  the  labors  necessary  for  the  upbuilding  of  society 
are  not  yet  so  adjusted  that  there  is  mutual  pleasure  and 
comfort  in  the  relations  of  employer  and  employed.  We 
still  incline  to  class  distinctions  and  aristocracies.  We  in 
cline  to  the  scheme  of  dividing  the  world's  work  into  two 
orders :  first,  physical  labor,  which  is  held  to  be  rude  and 
vulgar,  and  the  province  of  a  lower  class  ;  and  second,  brain 
labor,  held  to  be  refined  and  aristocratic,  and  the  province 
of  a  higher  class.  Meanwhile,  the  Creator,  who  is  the  great 
est  of  levelers,  has  given  to  every  human  being  both  a 
physical  system,  needing  to  be  kept  in  order  by  physical 
labor,  and  an  intellectual  or  brain  power,  needing  to  be  kept 
in  order  by  brain  labor.  Work,  use,  employment,  is  the 
condition  of  health  in  both  5  and  he  who  works  either  to 
the  neglect  of  the  other  lives  but  a  half-life,  and  is  an  im 
perfect  human  being. 


298  THE    CHIMNEY-CORNER 

"  The  aristocracies  of  the  Old  World  claim  that  their  only 
labor  should  be  that  of  the  brain  ;  and  they  keep  their  physi 
cal  system  in  order  by  violent  exercise,  which  is  made  gen 
teel  from  the  fact  only  that  it  is  not  useful  or  productive. 
It  would  be  losing  caste  to  refresh  the  muscles  by  handling 
the  plough  or  the  axe  ;  and  so  foxes  and  hares  must  be  kept 
to  be  hunted,  and  whole  counties  turned  into  preserves,  in 
order  that  the  nobility  and  gentry  may  have  physical  ex 
ercise  in  a  way  befitting  their  station,  —  that  is  to  say,  in 
a  way  that  produces  nothing,  and  does  good  only  to  them 
selves. 

"  The  model  republican  uses  his  brain  for  the  highest 
purposes  of  brain  work,  and  his  muscles  in  productive  physi 
cal  labor ;  and  useful  labor  he  respects  above  that  which  is 
merely  agreeable.  When  this  equal  respect  for  physical  and 
mental  labor  shall  have  taken  possession  of  every  American 
citizen,  there  will  be  no  so-called  laboring  class  ;  there  will 
no  more  be  a  class  all  muscle  without  brain  power  to  guide 
it,  and  a  class  all  brain  without  muscular  power  to  execute. 
The  labors  of  society  will  be  lighter,  because  each  individual 
will  take  his  part  in  them  ;  they  will  be  performed  better, 
because  no  one  will  be  overburdened.  In  those  days,  Miss 
Jenny,  it  will  be  an  easier  matter  to  keep  house,  because, 
housework  being  no  longer  regarded  as  degrading  drudgery, 
you  will  find  a  superior  class  of  women  ready  to  engage  in  it. 

"  Every  young  girl  and  woman,  who  in  her  sphere  and 
by  her  example  shows  that  she  is  not  ashamed  of  domestic 
labor,  and  that  she  considers  the  necessary  work  and  duties 
of  family  life  as  dignified  and  important,  is  helping  to  bring 
on  this  good  day.  Louis  Philippe  once  jestingly  remarked, 
( I  have  this  qualification  for  being  a  king  in  these  days, 
that  I  have  blacked  my  own  boots,  and  could  black  them 
again.' 

"  Every  American  ought  to  cultivate,  as  his  pride  and 
birthright,  the  habit  of  self-helpfulness.  Our  command  of 


A   FAMILY   TALK   ON   RECONSTRUCTION  299 

the  labors  of  good  employees  in  any  department  is  liable  to 
such  interruptions,  that  he  who  has  blacked  his  own  boots, 
and  can  do  it  again,  is,  on  the  whole,  likely  to  secure  the 
most  comfort  in  life. 

"  As  to  that  which  Mr.  Ruskin  pronounces  to  be  a  deep, 
irremediable  ulcer  in  society,  namely,  domestic  service,  we 
hold  that  the  last  workings  of  pure  democracy  will  cleanse 
and  heal  it.  When  right  ideas  are  sufficiently  spread  ;  when 
everybody  is  self-helpful  and  capable  of  being  self-support 
ing  ;  when  there  is  a  fair  start  for  every  human  being  in  the 
race  of  life,  and  all  its  prizes  are,  without  respect  of  persons, 
to  be  obtained  by  the  best  runner ;  when  every  kind  of  use 
ful  labor  is  thoroughly  respected,  —  then  there  will  be  a 
clear,  just,  wholesome  basis  of  intercourse  on  which  employ 
ers  and  employed  can  move  without  wrangling  or  discord. 

"  Renouncing  all  claims  to  superiority  on  the  one  hand, 
and  all  thought  of  servility  on  the  other,  service  can  be 
rendered  by  fair  contracts  and  agreements,  with  that  mutual 
respect  and  benevolence  which  every  human  being  owes  to 
every  other.  But  for  this  transition  period,  which  is  wear 
ing  out  the  life  of  so  many  women,  and  making  so  many 
households  uncomfortable,  I  have  some  alleviating  sugges 
tions,  which  I  shall  give  in  my  next  chapter." 


IV 

IS    WOMAN    A    WORKER 

"  PAPA,  do  you  see  what  the  '  Evening  Post '  says  of  your 
New  Year's  article  on  Reconstruction  ?  "  said  Jenny,  as  we 
were  all  sitting  in  the  library  after  tea. 

"  I  have  not  seen  it." 

"  Well,  then,  the  charming  writer,  whoever  he  is,  takes 
up  for  us  girls  and  women,  and  maintains  that  no  work  of 
any  sort  ought  to  be  expected  of  us  ;  that  our  only  mission 
in  life  is  to  be  beautiful,  and  to  refresh  and  elevate  the 
spirits  of  men  by  being  so.  If  I  get  a  husband,  my  mission 
is  to  be  always  becomingly  dressed,  to  display  most  captivat 
ing  toilettes,  and  to  be  always  in  good  spirits,  —  as,  under 
the  circumstances,  I  always  should  be,  —  and  thus  '  renew 
his  spirits '  when  he  conies  in  weary  with  the  toils  of  life. 
Household  cares  are  to  be  far  from  me  :  they  destroy  my 
cheerfulness  and  injure  my  beauty. 

"  He  says  that  the  New  England  standard  of  excellence 
as  applied  to  woman  has  been  a  mistaken  one  ;  and,  in  conse 
quence,  though  the  girls  are  beautiful,  the  matrons  are  faded, 
overworked,  and  uninteresting  ;  and  that  such  a  state  of  soci 
ety  tends  to  immorality,  because,  when  wives  are  no  longer 
charming,  men  are  open  to  the  temptation  to  desert  their 
firesides,  and  get  into  mischief  generally.  He  seems  particu 
larly  to  complain  of  your  calling  ladies  who  do  nothing  the 
'  fascinating  lazzaroni  of  the  parlor  and  boudoir.' ': 

"  There  was  too  much  truth  back  of  that  arrow  not  to 
wound,"  said  Theophilus  Thoro,  who  was  ensconced,  as 
usual,  in  his  dark  corner,  whence  he  supervises  our  discus 
sions. 


IS  'WOMAN   A   WOEKER  301 

"  Come,  Mr.  Thoro,  we  won't  have  any  of  your  bitter 
moralities/'  said  Jenny  ;  "  they  are  only  to  be  taken  as  the 
invariable  bay-leaf  which  Professor  Blot  introduces  into  all 
his  recipes  for  soups  and  stews,  —  a  little  elegant  bitterness, 
to  be  kept  tastefully  in  the  background.  You  see  now, 
papa,  I  should  like  the  vocation  of  being  beautiful.  It 
would  just  suit  me  to  wear  point-lace  and  jewelry,  and  to 
have  life  revolve  round  me,  as  some  beautiful  star,  and  feel 
that  I  had  nothing  to  do  but  shine  and  refresh  the  spirits 
of  all  gazers,  and  that  in  this  way  I  was  truly  useful,  and 
fulfilling  the  great  end  of  my  being ;  but  alas  for  this  doc 
trine  !  all  women  have  not  beauty.  The  most  of  us  can 
only  hope  not  to  be  called  ill-looking,  and,  when  we  get 
ourselves  up  with  care,  to  look  fresh  and  trim  and  agree 
able  ;  which  fact  interferes  with  the  theory." 

"Well,  for  my  part,"  said  young  Rudolph,  "I  go  for 
the  theory  of  the  beautiful.  If  ever  I  marry,  it  is  to  find 
an  asylum  for  ideality.  I  don't  want  to  make  a  culinary 
marriage  or  a  business  partnership.  I  want  a  being  whom 
I  can  keep  in  a  sphere  of  poetry  and  beauty,  out  of  the 
dust  and  grime  of  every -day  life." 

"Then,"  said  Mr.  Theophilus,  "you  must  either  be  a 
rich  man  in  your  own  right,  or  your  fair  ideal  must  have  a 
handsome  fortune  of  her  own." 

"  I  never  will  marry  a  rich  wife,"  quoth  Rudolph. 
"  My  wife  must  be  supported  by  me,  not  I  by  her." 

Rudolph  is  another  of  the  habitues  of  our  chimney-corner, 
representing  the  order  of  young  knighthood  in  America,  and 
his  dreams  and  fancies,  if  impracticable,  are  always  of  a  kind 
to  make  every  one  think  him  a  good  fellow.  He  who  has  no 
romantic  dreams  at  twenty-one  will  be  a  horribly  dry  peascod 
at  fifty ;  therefore  it  is  that  I  gaze  reverently  at  all  Ru 
dolph's  chateaus  in  Spain,  which  want  nothing  to  complete 
them  except  solid  earth  to  stand  on. 

"  And  pray,"  said  Theophilus,  "  how  long  will  it  take 


302  THE    CHIMNEY-CORNER 

a  young  lawyer  or  physician,  starting  with  no  heritage  but 
his  own  brain,  to  create  a  sphere  of  poetry  and  beauty  in 
which  to  keep  his  goddess  ?  How  much  a  year  will  be 
necessary,  as  the  English  say,  to  do  this  garden  of  Eden, 
whereinto  shall  enter  only  the  poetry  of  life  ?  " 

"  I  don't  know.  I  have  n't  seen  it  near  enough  to  con 
sider.  It  is  because  I  know  the  difficulty  of  its  attain 
ment  that  I  have  no  present  thoughts  of  marriage.  Mar 
riage  is  to  me  in  the  bluest  of  all  blue  distances,  —  far  off, 
mysterious,  and  dreamy  as  the  Mountains  of  the  Moon  or 
sources  of  the  Nile.  It  shall  come  only  when  I  have  secured 
a  fortune  that  shall  place  my  wife  above  all  necessity  of 
work  or  care." 

"  I  desire  to  hear  from  you,"  said  Theophilus,  "  when 
you  have  found  the  sum  that  will  keep  a  woman  from  care. 
I  know  of  women  now  inhabiting  palaces,  waited  on  at 
every  turn  by  servants,  with  carriages,  horses,  jewels,  laces, 
Cashmeres,  enough  for  princesses,  who  are  eaten  up  by  care. 
One  lies  awake  all  night  on  account  of  a  wrinkle  in  the 
waist  of  her  dress  ;  another  is  dying  because  no  silk  of  a 
certain  inexpressible  shade  is  to  be  found  in  New  York  ;  a 
third  has  had  a  dress  sent  home,  which  has  proved  such  a  fail 
ure  that  life  seems  no  longer  worth  having.  If  it  were  not 
for  the  consolations  of  religion,  one  does  n't  know  what  would 
become  of  her.  The  fact  is,  that  care  and  labor  are  as 
much  correlated  to  human  existence  as  shadow  is  to  light ; 
there  is  no  such  thing  as  excluding  them  from  any  mortal 
lot.  You  may  make  a  canary-bird  or  a  gold-fish  live  in 
absolute  contentment  without  a  care  or  labor,  but  a  human 
being  you  cannot.  Human  beings  are  restless  and  active 
in  their  very  nature,  and  will  do  something,  and  that  some 
thing  will  prove  a  care,  a  labor,  and  a  fatigue,  arrange  it 
how  you  will.  As  long  as  there  is  anything  to  be  desired 
and  not  yet  attained,  so  long  its  attainment  will  be  at 
tempted  ;,  so  long  as  that  attainment  is  doubtful  or  difficult, 


IS   WOMAN  A  WORKER  303 

so  long  will  there  be  care  and  anxiety.  When  boundless 
wealth  releases  woman  from  every  family  care,  she  immedi 
ately  makes  herself  a  new  set  of  cares  in  another  direction, 
and  has  just  as  many  anxieties  as  the  most  toilful  house 
keeper,  only  they  are  of  a  different  kind.  Talk  of  labor, 
and  look  at  the  upper  classes  in  London  or  in  New  York 
in  the  fashionable  season.  Do  any  women  work  harder  ? 
To  rush  from  crowd  to  crowd  all  night,  night  after  night, 
seeing  what  they  are  tired  of,  making  the  agreeable  over  an 
abyss  of  inward  yawning,  crowded,  jostled,  breathing  hot 
air,  and  crushed  in  halls  and  stairways,  without  a  moment 
of  leisure  for  months  and  months,  till  brain  and  nerve  and 
sense  reel,  and  the  country  is  longed  for  as  a  period  of  re 
suscitation  and  relief  !  Such  is  the  release  from  labor  and 
fatigue  brought  by  wealth.  The  only  thing  that  makes 
all  this  labor  at  all  endurable  is,  that  it  is  utterly  and  en 
tirely  useless,  and  does  no  good  to  any  one  in  creation ; 
this  alone  makes  it  genteel,  and  distinguishes  it  from  the 
vulgar  toils  of  a  housekeeper.  These  delicate  creatures,  who 
can  go  to  three  or  four  parties  a  night  for  three  months, 
would  be  utterly  desolate  if  they  had  to  watch  one  night  in  a 
sick-room  ;  and  though  they  can  exhibit  any  amount  of  phy 
sical  endurance  and  vigor  in  crowding  into  assembly  rooms, 
and  breathe  tainted  air  in  an  opera-house  with  the  most  mar 
tyr-like  constancy,  they  could  not  sit  one  half-hour  in  the 
close  room  where  the  sister  of  charity  spends  hours  in  consol 
ing  the  sick  or  aged  poor." 

"  Mr.  Theophilus  is  quite  at  home  now,"  said  Jenny ; 
"  only  start  him  on  the  track  of  fashionable  life,  and  he 
takes  the  course  like  a  hound.  But  hear,  now,  our  cham 
pion  of  the  '  Evening  Post ' :  — 

" f  The  instinct  of  women  to  seek  a  life  of  repose,  their 
eagerness  to  attain  the  life  of  elegance,  does  not  mean  con 
tempt  for  labor,  but  it  is  a  confession  of  unfitness  for  labor. 
Women  were  not  intended  to  work,  —  not  because  work  is 


301  THE    CHIMNEY-CORNER 

ignoble,  but  because  it  is  as  disastrous  to  tbe  beauty  of  a 
woman  as  is  friction  to  the  bloom  and  softness  of  a  flower. 
Woman  is  to  be  kept  in  the  garden  of  life  ;  she  is  to  rest, 
to  receive,  to  praise ;  she  is  to  be  kept  from  the  workshop 
world,  where  innocence  is  snatched  with  rude  hands,  and 
softness  is  blistered  into  unsightliness  or  hardened  into 
adamant.  No  social  truth  is  more  in  need  of  exposition 
and  illustration  than  this  one ;  and,  above  all,  the  people 
of  New  England  need  to  know  it,  and,  better,  they  need  to 
believe  it. 

"  { It  is  therefore  with  regret  that  we  discover  Christopher 
Crowfield  applying  so  harshly,  and,  as  we  think  so  indis- 
criminatingly,  the  theory  of  work  to  women,  and  teaching 
a  society  made  up  of  women  sacrificed  in  the  workshops  of 
the  State,  or  to  the  dustpans  and  kitchens  of  the  house, 
that  women  must  work,  ought  to  work,  and  are  dishonored 
if  they  do  not  work  ;  and  that  a  woman  committed  to  the 
drudgery  of  a  household  is  more  creditably  employed  than 
when  she  is  charming,  fascinating,  irresistible,  in  the  parlor 
or  boudoir.  The  consequence  of  this  fatal  mistake  is  mani 
fest  throughout  New  England,  —  in  New  England  where 
the  girls  are  all  beautiful  and  the  wives  and  mothers  faded, 
disfigured,  and  without  charm  or  attractiveness.  The  moment 
a  girl  marries,  in  New  England,  she  is  apt  to  become  a  drudge 
or  a  lay  figure  on  which  to  exhibit  the  latest  fashions.  She 
never  has  beautiful  hands,  and  she  would  not  have  a  beau 
tiful  face  if  a  utilitarian  society  could  "  apply  "  her  face  to 
anything  but  the  pleasure  of  the  eye.  Her  hands  lose  their 
shape  and  softness  after  childhood,  and  domestic  drudgery 
destroys  her  beauty  of  form  and  softness  and  bloom  of  com 
plexion  after  marriage.  To  correct,  or  rather  to  break  up, 
this  despotism  of  household  cares,  or  of  work,  over  woman, 
American  society  must  be  taught  that  women  will  inevitably 
fade  and  deteriorate,  unless  it  insures  repose  and  comfort  to 
them.  It  must  be  taught  that  reverence  for  beauty  is  the 


IS    WOMAN    A   WORKER  305 

normal  condition,  while  the  theory  of  work,  applied  to  women, 
is  disastrous  alike  to  beauty  and  morals.  Work,  when  it  is 
destructive  to  men  or  women,  is  forced  and  unjust. 

"  i  All  the  great  masculine  or  creative  epochs  have  been 
distinguished  by  spontaneous  work  on  the  part  of  men,  and 
universal  reverence  arid  care  for  beauty.  The  praise  of 
work,  and  sacrifice  of  women  to  this  great  heartless  devil 
of  work,  belong  only  to,  and  are  the  social  doctrine  of,  a 
mechanical  age  and  a  utilitarian  epoch.  And  if  the  New 
England  idea  of  social  life  continues  to  bear  so  cruelly  on 
woman,  we  shall  have  a  reaction  somewhat  unexpected  and 
shocking.' ' 

"  Well  now,  say  what  you  will,"  said  Rudolph,  "  you 
have  expressed  my  idea  of  the  conditions  of  the  sex. 
Woman  was  not  made  to  work  ;  she  was  made  to  be  taken 
care  of  by  man.  All  that  is  severe  and  trying,  whether  in 
study  or  in  practical  life,  is  and  ought  to  be  in  its  very  na 
ture  essentially  the  work  of  the  male  sex.  The  value  of 
woman  is  precisely  the  value  of  those  priceless  works  of  art 
for  which  we  build  museums,  —  which  we  shelter  and  guard 
as  the  world's  choicest  heritage  ;  and  a  lovely,  cultivated, 
refined  woman,  thus  sheltered,  and  guarded,  and  developed, 
has  a  worth  that  cannot  be  estimated  by  any  gross,  material 
standard.  So  I  subscribe  to  the  sentiments  of  Miss  Jenny's 
friend  without  scruple." 

"  The  great  trouble  in  settling  all  these  society  ques 
tions,"  said  I,  "lies  in  the  gold- washing  —  the  cradling  I 
think  the  miners  call  it.  If  all  the  quartz  were  in  one 
stratum  and  all  the  gold  in  another,  it  would  save  us  a  vast 
deal  of  trouble.  In  the  ideas  of  Jenny's  friend  of  the 
'  Evening  Post '  there  is  a  line  of  truth  and  a  line  of  false 
hood  so  interwoven  and  threaded  together  that  it  is  impos 
sible  wholly  to  assent  or  dissent.  So  with  your  ideas,  Ru 
dolph,  there  is  a  degree  of  truth  in  them,  but  there  is  also 
a  fallacy. 


306  THE   CHIMNEY-CORNER 

"  It  is  a  truth,  that  woman  as  a  sex  ought  not  to  do  the 
hard  work  of  the  world,  either  social,  intellectual,  or  moral. 
These  are  evidences  in  her  physiology  that  this  was  not  in 
tended  for  her,  and  our  friend  of  the  '  Evening  Post '  is  right 
in  saying  that  any  country  will  advance  more  rapidly  in 
civilization  and  refinement  where  woman  is  thus  sheltered 
and  protected.  And  I  think,  furthermore,  that  there  is  no 
country  in  the  world  where  women  are  so  much  considered 
and  cared  for  and  sheltered,  in  every  walk  of  life,  as  in 
America.  In  England  and  France,  —  all  over  the  conti 
nent  of  Europe,  in  fact,  —  the  other  sex  are  deferential  to 
women  only  from  some  presumption  of  their  social  standing, 
or  from  the  fact  of  acquaintanceship  ;  but  among  strangers, 
and  under  circumstances  where  no  particular  rank  or  posi 
tion  can  be  inferred,  a  woman  traveling  in  England  or 
France  is  jostled  and  pushed  to  the  wall,  and  left  to  take 
her  own  chance,  precisely  as  if  she  were  not  a  woman. 
Deference  to  delicacy  and  weakness,  the  instinct  of  protec 
tion,  does  not  appear  to  characterize  the  masculine  popu 
lation  of  any  other  quarter  of  the  world  so  much  as  that 
of  America.  In  France,  les  Messieurs  will  form  a  circle 
round  the  fire  in  the  receiving-room  of  a  railroad  station, 
and  sit,  tranquilly  smoking  their  cigars,  while  ladies  who  do 
not  happen  to  be  of  their  acquaintance  are  standing  shiver 
ing  at  the  other  side  of  the  room.  In  England,  if  a  lady  is 
incautiously  booked  for  an  outside  place  on  a  coach,  in  hope 
of  seeing  the  scenery,  and  the  day  turns  out  hopelessly 
rainy,  no  gentleman  in  the  coach  below  ever  thinks  of  offer 
ing  to  change  seats  with  her,  though  it  pour  torrents.  In 
America,  the  roughest  backwoods  steamboat  or  canal-boat  cap 
tain  always,  as  a  matter  of  course,  considers  himself  charged 
with  the  protection  of  the  ladies.  {  Place  anx  dames '  is 
written  in  the  heart  of  many  a  shaggy  fellow  who  could 
not  utter  a  French  word  any  more  than  could  a  buffalo. 
It  is  just  as  I  have  before  said,  —  women  are  the  recog- 


IS   WOMAN   A   WORKER  307 

nized  aristocracy,  the  only  aristocracy,  of  America  ;  and,  so 
far  from  regarding  this  fact  as  objectionable,  it  is  an  un 
ceasing  source  of  pride  in  my  country. 

"  That  kind  of  knightly  feeling  towards  woman  which 
reverences  her  delicacy,  her  frailty,  which  protects  and  cares 
for  her,  is,  I  think,  the  crown  of  manhood  ;  and  without  it 
a  man  is  only  a  rough  animal.  But  our  fair  aristocrats  and 
their  knightly  defenders  need  to  be  cautioned  lest  they  lose 
their  position,  as  many  privileged  orders  have  before  done, 
by  an  arrogant  and  selfish  use  of  power. 

"  I  have  said  that  the  vices  of  aristocracy  are  more  devel 
oped  among  women  in  America  than  among  men,  and  that, 
while  there  are  no  men  in  the  Northern  States  who  are  not 
ashamed  of  living  a  merely  idle  life  of  pleasure,  there  are 
many  women  who  make  a  boast  of  helplessness  and  igno 
rance  in  woman's  family  duties  which  any  man  would  be 
ashamed  to  make  with  regard  to  man's  duties,  as  if  such 
helplessness  and  ignorance  were  a  grace  and  a  charm. 

"  There  are  women  who  contentedly  live  on,  year  after 
year,  a  life  of  idleness,  while  the  husband  and  father  is 
straining  every  nerve,  growing  prematurely  old  and  gray, 
abridged  of  almost  every  form  of  recreation  or  pleasure, 
—  all  that  he  may  keep  them  in  a  state  of  careless  ease 
and  festivity.  It  may  be  very  fine,  very  generous,  very 
knightly,  in  the  man  who  thus  toils  at  the  oar  that  his 
princesses  may  enjoy  their  painted  voyages  ;  but  what  is  it 
for  the  women  ? 

"  A  woman  is  a  moral  being  —  an  immortal  soul  —  before 
she  is  a  woman  ;  and  as  such  she  is  charged  by  her  Maker 
with  some  share  of  the  great  burden  of  work  which  lies  on 
the  world. 

"  Self-denial,  the  bearing  of  the  cross,  are  stated  by  Christ 
as  indispensable  conditions  to  the  entrance  into  his  kingdom, 
and  no  exception  is  made  for  man  or  woman.  Some  task, 
some  burden,  some  cross,  each  one  must  carry  ;  and  there 


308  THE   CHIMNEY-CORNER 

must  be  something  done  in  every  true  and  worthy  life,  not 
as  amusement,  but  as  duty,  —  not  as  play,  but  as  earnest 
twork,  —  and  no  human  being  can  attain  to  the  Christian 
standard  without  this. 

"  When  Jesus  Christ  took  a  towel  and  girded  himself, 
poured  water  into  a  basin,  and  washed  his  disciples'  feet,  he 
performed  a  significant  and  sacramental  act.  which  no  man 
or  woman  should  ever  forget.  If  wealth  and  rank  and  power 
absolve  from  the  services  of  life,  then  certainly  were  Jesus 
Christ  absolved,  as  he  says :  (  Ye  call  me  Master,  and  Lord. 
If  I  then,  your  Lord  and  Master,  have  washed  your  feet, 
ye  also  ought  to  wash  one  another's  feet.  For  I  have 
given  you  an  example,  that  ye  should  do  as  I  have  done 
to  you.' 

"  Let  a  man  who  seeks  to  make  a  terrestrial  paradise  for 
the  woman  of  his  heart,  —  to  absolve  her  from  all  care, 
from  all  labor,  to  teach  her  to  accept  and  to  receive  the 
labor  of  others  without  any  attempt  to  offer  labor  in  return, 
—  consider  whether  he  is  not  thus  going  directly  against 
the  fundamental  idea  of  Christianity  ;  taking  the  direct  way 
to  make  his  idol  selfish  and  exacting,  to  rob  her  of  the  high 
est  and  noblest  beauty  of  womanhood. 

"  In  that  chapter  of  the  Bible  where  the  relation  between 
man  and  woman  is  stated,  it  is  thus  said,  with  quaint  simpli 
city  :  '  It  is  not  good  that  the  man  should  be  alone  ;  I  will 
make  him  an  help  meet  for  him.'  Woman  the  helper  of 
man,  not  his  toy,  —  not  a  picture,  not  a  statue,  not  a  work 
of  art,  but  a  HELPER,  a  doer,  —  such  is  the  view  of  the 
Bible  and  the  Christian  religion. 

a  It  is  not  necessary  that  women  should  work  physically 
or  morally  to  an  extent  which  impairs  beauty.  In  France, 
where  woman  is  harnessed  with  an  ass  to  the  plough  which 
her  husband  drives,  —  where  she  digs,  and  wields  the  pick 
axe,  —  she  becomes  prematurely  hideous  ;  but  in  America, 
where  woman  reigns  as  queen  in  every  household,  she  may 


IS   WOMAN   A   WORKER  309 

surely  be  a  good  and  thoughtful  housekeeper,  she  may  have 
physical  strength  exercised  in  lighter  domestic  toils,  not  only 
without  injuring  her  beauty,  but  with  manifest  advantage 
to  it.  Almost  every  growing  young  girl  would  be  the  bet 
ter  in  health,  and  therefore  handsomer,  for  two  hours  of 
active  housework  daily  ;  and  the  habit  of  usefulness  thereby 
gained  would  be  an  equal  advantage  to  her  moral  develop 
ment.  The  labors  of  modern,  well-arranged  houses  are  not 
in  any  sense  severe  ;  they  are  as  gentle  as  any  kind  of  exer 
cise  that  can  be  devised,  and  they  bring  into  play  muscles 
that  ought  to  be  exercised  to  be  healthily  developed. 

"  The  great  danger  to  the  beauty  of  American  women  does 
not  lie,  as  the  writer  of  the  '  Post '  contends,  in  an  overwork 
ing  of  the  physical  system  which  shall  stunt  and  deform  ;  on 
the  contrary,  American  women  of  the  comfortable  classes  are 
in  danger  of  a  loss  of  physical  beauty  from  the  entire  deteri 
oration  of  the  muscular  system  for  want  of  exercise.  Take 
the  life  of  any  American  girl  in  one  of  our  large  towns,  and 
see  what  it  is.  We  have  an  educational  system  of  public 
schools  which  for  intellectual  culture  is  a  just  matter  of  pride 
to  any  country.  From  the  time  that  the  girl  is  seven  years 
old,  her  first  thought,  when  she  rises  in  the  morning,  is  to  eat 
her  breakfast  and  be  off  to  her  school.  There  really  is  no 
more  time  than  enough  to  allow  her  to  make  that  complete 
toilet  which  every  well-bred  female  ought  to  make,  and  to 
take  her  morning  meal  before  her  school  begins.  She  re 
turns  at  noon  with  just  time  to  eat  her  dinner,  and  the 
afternoon  session  begins.  She  comes  home  at  night  with 
books,  slate,  and  lessons  enough  to  occupy  her  evening. 
What  time  is  there  for  teaching  her  any  household  work, 
for  teaching  her  to  cut  or  fit  or  sew,  or  to  inspire  her  with 
any  taste  for  domestic  duties  ?  Her  arms  have  no  exercise  ; 
her  chest  and  lungs,  and  all  the  complex  system  of  muscles 
which  are  to  be  perfected  by  quick  and  active  movement, 
are  compressed  while  she  bends  over  book  and  slate  and 


310  THE    CHIMNEY-CORNER 

drawing-board  ;  while  the  ever  active  brain  is  kept  all  the 
while  going  at  the  top  of  its  speed.  She  grows  up  spare,  thin, 
and  delicate  ;  and  while  the  Irish  girl,  who  sweeps  the  par 
lors,  rubs  the  silver,  and  irons  the  muslins,  is  developing  a 
finely  rounded  arm  and  bust,  the  American  girl  has  a  pair 
of  bones  at  her  sides,  and  a  bust  composed  of  cotton  pad 
ding,  the  work  of  a  skillful  dressmaker.  Nature,  who  is  no 
respecter  of  persons,  gives  to  Colleen  Bawn,  who  uses  her 
arms  and  chest,  a  beauty  which  perishes  in  the  gentle,  lan 
guid  Edith,  who  does  nothing  but  study  and  read." 

"  But  is  it  not  a  fact,"  said  Eudolph,  "  as  stated  by  our 
friend  of  the  c  Post,'  that  American  matrons  are  perishing, 
and  their  beauty  and  grace  all  withered,  from  overwork  ?  " 

"  It  is,"  said  my  wife  ;  "  but  why  ?  It  is  because  they 
are  brought  up  without  vigor  or  muscular  strength,  without 
the  least  practical  experience  of  household  labor,  or  those 
means  of  saving  it  which  come  by  daily  practice  ;  and  then, 
after  marriage,  when  physically  weakened  by  maternity, 
embarrassed  by  the  care  of  young  children,  they  are  often 
suddenly  deserted  by  every  efficient  servant,  and  the  whole 
machinery  of  a  complicated  household  left  in  their  weak, 
inexperienced  hands.  In  the  country,  you  see  a  household 
perhaps  made  void  some  fine  morning  by  Biddy's  sudden 
departure,  and  nobody  to  make  the  bread,  or  cook  the  steak, 
or  sweep  the  parlors,  or  do  one  of  the  complicated  offices  of 
a  family,  and  no  bakery,  cook-shop,  or  laundry  to  turn  to 
for  alleviation.  A  lovely,  refined  home  becomes  in  a  few 
hours  a  howling  desolation  ;  and  then  ensues  a  long  season 
of  breakage,  waste,  distraction,  as  one  wild  Irish  immigrant 
after  another  introduces  the  style  of  Irish  cottage  life  into 
an  elegant  dwelling. 

"  Now  suppose  I  grant  to  the  '  Evening  Post '  that  wo 
man  ought  to  rest,  to  be  kept  in  the  garden  of  life,  and 
all  that,  how  is  this  to  be  done  in  a  country  where  a  state 
of  things  like  this  is  the  commonest  of  occurrences  ?  And 


IS   WOMAN  A   WORKER  311 

is  it  any  kindness  or  reverence  to  woman,  to  educate  her 
for  such  an  inevitable  destiny  by  a  life  of  complete  physical 
delicacy  and  incapacity  ?  Many  a  woman  who  has  been 
brought  into  these  cruel  circumstances  would  willingly  ex 
change  all  her  knowledge  of  German  and  Italian,  and  all 
her  graceful  accomplishments,  for  a  good  physical  develop 
ment,  and  some  respectable  savoir  faire  in  ordinary  life. 

"  Moreover,  American  matrons  are  overworked  because 
some  unaccountable  glamour  leads  them  to  continue  to 
bring  up  their  girls  in  the  same  inefficient  physical  habits 
which  resulted  in  so  much  misery  to  themselves.  House 
work  as  they  are  obliged  to  do  it,  untrained,  untaught,  ex 
hausted,  and  in  company  with  rude,  dirty,  unkempt  for 
eigners,  seems  to  them  a  degradation  which  they  will  spare 
to  their  daughters.  The  daughter  goes  on  with  her  schools 
and  accomplishments,  and  leads  in  the  family  the  life  of  an 
elegant  little  visitor  during  all  those  years  when  a  young 
girl  might  be  gradually  developing  and  strengthening  her 
muscles  in  healthy  household  work.  It  never  occurs  to 
her  that  she  can  or  ought  to  fill  any  of  the  domestic  gaps 
into  which  her  mother  always  steps ;  and  she  comforts  her 
self  with  the  thought,  '  I  don't  know  how ;  I  can't ;  I 
have  n't  the  strength.  I  can't  sweep  ;  it  blisters  my  hands. 
If  I  should  stand  at  the  ironing-table  an  hour,  I  should 
be  ill  for  a  week.  As  to  cooking,  I  don't  know  anything 
about  it.'  And  so,  when  the  cook,  or  the  chambermaid,  or 
nurse,  or  all  together,  vacate  the  premises,  it  is  the  mamma 
who  is  successively  cook,  and  chambermaid,  and  nurse ;  and 
this  is  the  reason  why  matrons  fade  and  are  overworked. 

"  Now,  Mr.  Rudolph,  do  you  think  a  woman  any  less 
beautiful  or  interesting  because  she  is  a  fully  developed  phy 
sical  being,  —  because  her  muscles  have  been  rounded  and 
matured  into  strength,  so  that  she  can  meet  the  inevitable 
emergencies  of  life  without  feeling  them  to  be  distressing 
hardships  ?  If  there  be  a  competent,  well-trained  servant  to 


312  THE   CHIMNEY-CORNER 

sweep  and  dust  the  parlor,  and  keep  all  the  machinery  of 
the  house  in  motion,  she  may  very  properly  select  her  work 
out  of  the  family,  in  some  form  of  benevolent  helpfulness  ; 
but  when  the  inevitable  evil  hour  comes,  which  is  likely  to 
come  first  or  last  in  every  American  household,  is  a  woman 
any  less  an  elegant  woman  because  her  love  of  neatness, 
order,  and  beauty  leads  her  to  make  vigorous  personal  ex 
ertions  to  keep  her  own  home  undefiled  ?  For  my  part, 
I  think  a  disorderly,  ill-kept  home,  a  sordid,  uninviting 
table,  has  driven  more  husbands  from  domestic  life  than 
the  unattractiveness  of  any  overworked  woman.  So  long 
as  a  woman  makes  her  home  harmonious  and  orderly,  so 
long  as  the  hour  of  assembling  around  the  family  table 
is  something  to  be  looked  forward  to  as  a  comfort  and  a 
refreshment,  a  man  cannot  see  that  the  good  house  fairy, 
who  by  some  magic  keeps  everything  so  delightfully,  has 
either  a  wrinkle  or  a  gray  hair." 

"  Besides,"  said  I,  "  I  must  tell  yon,  Rudolph,  what  you 
fellows  of  twenty-one  are  slow  to  believe  ;  and  that  is,  that 
the  kind  of  ideal  paradise  you  propose  in  marriage  is,  in  the 
very  nature  of  things,  an  impossibility,  —  that  the  familiar 
ities  of  every-day  life  between  two  people  who  keep  house 
together  must  and  will  destroy  it.  Suppose  you  are  mar 
ried  to  Cytherea  herself,  and  the  next  week  attacked  with 
a  rheumatic  fever.  If  the  tie  between  you  is  that  of  true 
and  honest  love,  Cytherea  will  put  on  a  gingham  wrapper, 
and  with  her  own  sculptured  hands  wring  out  the  flannels 
wThich  shall  relieve  your  pains  ;  and  she  will  be  no  true 
woman  if  she  do  not  prefer  to  do  this  to  employing  any 
nurse  that  could  be  hired.  True  love  ennobles  and  dignifies 
the  material  labors  of  life  ;  and  homely  services  rendered  for 
love's  sake  have  in  them  a  poetry  that  is  immortal. 

"No  true-hearted  woman  can  find  herself,  in  real,  actual 
life,  unskilled  and  unfit  to  minister  to  the  wants  and  sor 
rows  of  those  dearest  to  her,  without  a  secret  sense  of 


IS   WOMAN   A   WORKER  313 

degradation.  The  feeling  of  uselessness  is  an  extremely  un 
pleasant  one.  Tom  Hood,  in  a  very  humorous  paper,  de 
scribes  a  most  accomplished  schoolmistress,  a  teacher  of  all 
the  arts  and  crafts  which  are  supposed  to  make  up  fine 
gentlewomen,  who  is  stranded  in  a  rude  German  inn,  with 
her  father  writhing  in  the  anguish  of  a  severe  attack  of 
gastric  inflammation.  The  helpless  lady  gazes  on  her  suf 
fering  parent,  longing  to  help  him,  and  thinking  over  all 
her  various  little  store  of  accomplishments,  not  one  of  which 
bears  the  remotest  relation  to  the  case.  She  could  knit  him 
a  bead  purse,  or  make  him  a  guard-chain,  or  work  him  a 
footstool,  or  festoon  him  with  cut  tissue-paper,  or  sketch  his 
likeness,  or  crust  him  over  with  alum  crystals,  or  stick  him 
over  with  little  rosettes  of  red  and  white  wafers  ;  but  none 
of  these  being  applicable  to  his  present  case,  she  sits  gazing 
in  resigned  imbecility,  till  finally  she  desperately  resolves 
to  improvise  him  some  gruel,  and,  after  a  laborious  turn  in 
the  kitchen,  —  after  burning  her  dress  and  blacking  her 
fingers,  —  succeeds  only  in  bringing  him  a  bowl  of  paste ! 

"  Not  unlike  this  might  be  the  feeling  of  many  an  ele 
gant  and  accomplished  woman,  whose  education  has  taught 
and  practiced  her  in  everything  that  woman  ought  to  know, 
except  those  identical  ones  which  fit  her  for  the  care  of  a 
home,  for  the  comfort  of  a  sick-room  ;  and  so  I  say  again 
that,  whatever  a  woman  may  be  in  the  way  of  beauty  and 
elegance,  she  must  have  the  strength  and  skill  of  a  practi 
cal  worker,  or  she  is  nothing.  She  is  not  simply  to  be  the 
beautiful,  —  she  is  to  make  the  beautiful,  and  preserve  it ; 
and  she  who  makes  and  she  who  keeps  the  beautiful  must 
be  able  to  work,  and  know  how  to  work.  Whatever  offices 
of  life  are  performed  by  women  of  culture  and  refinement 
are  thenceforth  elevated  ;  they  cease  to  be  mere  servile  toils, 
and  become  expressions  of  the  ideas  of  superior  beings.  If 
a  true  lady  makes  even  a  plate  of  toast,  in  arranging  a  petit 
souper  for  her  invalid  friend,  she  does  it  as  a  lady  should. 


314  THE   CHIMNEY-CORNER 

She  does  not  cut  blundering  and  uneven  slices  ;  she  does 
not  burn  the  edges ;  she  does  not  deluge  it  with  bad  butter, 
and  serve  it  cold ;  but  she  arranges  and  serves  all  with  an 
artistic  care,  with  a  nicety  and  delicacy,  which  make  it 
worth  one's  while  to  have  a  lady  friend  in  sickness. 

"  And  I  am  glad  to  hear  that  Monsieur  Blot  is  teaching 
classes  of  New  York  ladies  that  cooking  is  not  a  vulgar 
kitchen  toil,  to  be  left  to  blundering  servants,  but  an  ele 
gant  feminine  accomplishment,  better  worth  a  woman's 
learning  than  crochet  or  embroidery  ;  and  that  a  well-kept 
culinary  apartment  may  be  so  inviting  and  orderly  that  no 
lady  need  feel  her  ladyhood  compromised  by  participating 
in  its  pleasant  toils.  I  am  glad  to  know  that  his  cooking- 
academy  is  thronged  with  more  scholars  than  he  can  accom 
modate,  and  from  ladies  in  the  best  classes  of  society. 

"  Moreover,  I  am  glad  to  see  that  in  New  Bedford,  re 
cently,  a  public  course  of  instruction  in  the  art  of  bread- 
making  has  been  commenced  by  a  lady,  and  that  classes  of 
the  most  respectable  young  and  married  ladies  in  the  place 
are  attending  them.  These  are  steps  in  the  right  direc 
tion,  and  show  that  our  fair  countrywomen,  with  the  grand 
good  sense  which  is  their  leading  characteristic,  are  resolved 
to  supply  whatever  in  our  national  life  is  wanting. 

(( I  do  not  fear  that  women  of  such  sense  and  energy 
will  listen  to  the  sophistries  which  would  persuade  them 
that  elegant  imbecility  and  inefficiency  are  charms  of  cul 
tivated  womanhood  or  ingredients  in  the  poetry  of  life. 
She  alone  can  keep  the  poetry  and  beauty  of  married  life 
who  has  this  poetry  in  her  soul ;  who  with  energy  and  dis 
cretion  can  throw  back  and  out  of  sight  the  sordid  and 
disagreeable  details  which  beset  all  human  living,  and  can 
keep  in  the  foreground  that  which  is  agreeable ;  who  has 
enough  knowledge  of  practical  household  matters  to  make 
unskilled  and  rude  hands  minister  to  her  cultivated  and  re 
fined  tastes,  and  constitute  her  skilled  brain  the  guide  of 


IS   WOMAN   A   WORKER  315 

unskilled  hands.  From  such  a  home,  with  such  a  mistress, 
no  sirens  will  seduce  a  man,  even  though  the  hair  grow 
gray,  and  the  merely  physical  charms  of  early  days  gradu 
ally  pass  a\\'ay.  The  enchantment  that  was  about  her  per 
son  alone  in  the  days  of  courtship  seems  in  the  course  of 
years  to  have  interfused  and  penetrated  the  home  which 
she  has  created,  and  which  in  every  detail  is  only  an  ex 
pression  of  her  personality.  Her  thoughts,  her  plans,  her 
provident  care,  are  everywhere ;  and  the  home  attracts  and 
holds  by  a  thousand  ties  the  heart  which  before  marriage 
was  held  by  the  woman  alone." 


THE    TRANSITION 

"  THE  fact  is,  my  dear/'  said  my  wife,  "  that  you  have 
thrown  a  stone  into  a  congregation  of  blackbirds,  in  writing 
as  you  have  of  our  family  wars  and  wants.  The  response 
comes  from  all  parts  of  the  country,  and  the  task  of  looking 
over  and  answering  your  letters  becomes  increasingly  for 
midable.  Everybody  has  something  to  say,  —  something  to 
propose." 

"  Give  me  a  re'sume',"  said  I. 

"  Well,"  said  my  wife,  "  here  are  three  pages  from  an 
elderly  gentleman,  to  the  effect  that  women  are  not  what  they 
used  to  be,  —  that  daughters  are  a  great  care  and  no  help, 
that  girls  have  no  health  and  no  energy  in  practical  life, 
that  the  expense  of  maintaining  a  household  is  so  great  that 
young  men  are  afraid  to  marry,  and  that  it  costs  more  now  per 
annum  to  dress  one  young  woman  than  it  used  to  cost  to  carry 
a  whole  family  of  sons  through  college.  In  short,  the  poor 
old  gentleman  is  in  a  desperate  state  of  mind,  and  is  firmly 
of  opinion  that  society  is  going  to  ruin  by  an  express  train." 

"  Poor  old  fellow  !  "  said  I,  "  the  only  comfort  I  can 
offer  him  is  what  I  take  myself,  —  that  this  sad  world  will 
last  out  our  time  at  least.  oSTow  for  the  next." 

"The  next  is  more  concise  and  spicy,"  said  my  wife. 
"  I  will  read  it. 

"  CHRISTOPHER  CROWFIELD,  ESQ.  : 

"  Sir,  —  If  you  want  to  know  how  American  women 
are  to  be  brought  back  to  family  work,  I  can  tell  you  a 


THE   TRANSITION  317 

short  method.  Pay  them  as  good  wages  for  it  as  they  can 
make  in  any  other  way.  I  get  from  seven  to  nine  dollars 
a  week  in  a  shop  where  I  work  ;  if  I  could  make  the  same 
in  any  good  family,  I  should  have  no  objection  to  doing  it. 
"  Your  obedient  servant, 

"  LETITIA." 

"  My  correspondent  Letitia  does  not  tell  me,"  said  I, 
"  how  much  of  this  seven  or  nine  dollars  she  pays  out  for 
board  and  washing,  fire  and  lights.  If  she  worked  in  a 
good  family  at  two  or  three  dollars  a  week,  it  is  easily  de 
monstrable  that,  at  the  present  cost  of  these  items,  she 
would  make  as  much  clear  profit  as  she  now  does  at  nine 
dollars  for  her  shop-work. 

"  And  there  are  two  other  things,  moreover,  which  she 
does  not  consider  :  First,  that,  besides  board,  washing,  fuel, 
and  lights,  which  she  would  have  in  a  family,  she  would 
have  also  less  unintermitted  toil.  Shop-work  exacts  its  ten 
hours  per  diem ;  and  it  makes  no  allowance  for  sickness  or 
accident. 

"  A  good  domestic  in  a  good  family  finds  many  hours 
when  she  can  feel  free  to  attend  to  her  own  affairs.  Her 
work  consists  of  certain  definite  matters,  which  being  done 
her  time  is  her  own  ;  and  if  she  have  skill  and  address  in 
the  management  of  her  duties,  she  may  secure  many  leisure 
hours.  As  houses  are  now  built,  and  with  the  many  labor- 
saving  conveniences  that  are  being  introduced,  the  physical 
labor  of  housework  is  no  more  than  a  healthy  woman  really 
needs  to  keep  her  in  health.  In  case,  however,  of  those 
slight  illnesses  to  which  all  are  more  or  less  liable,  and 
which,  if  neglected,  often  lead  to  graver  ones,  the  advantage 
is  still  on  the  side  of  domestic  service.  In  the  shop  and 
factory,  every  hour  of  unemployed  time  is  deducted  ;  an 
illness  of  a  day  or  two  is  an  appreciable  loss  of  just  so  much 
money,  while  the  expense  of  board  is  still  going  on.  But 


318  THE    CHIMNEY-CORNER 

in  the  family  a  good  servant  is  always  considered.  When 
ill,  she  is  carefully  nursed  as  one  of  the  family,  has  the 
family  physician,  and  is  subject  to  no  deduction  from  her 
wages  for  loss  of  time.  I  have  known  more  than  one  in 
stance  in  which  a  valued  domestic  has  been  sent,  at  her 
employer's  expense,  to  the  seaside  or  some  other  pleasant 
locality,  for  change  of  air,  when  her  health  has  been  run 
down. 

"  In  the  second  place,  family  work  is  more  remunerative, 
even  at  a  lower  rate  of  wages,  than  shop  or  factory  work, 
because  it  is  better  for  the  health.  All  sorts  of  sedentary 
employment,  pursued  by  numbers  of  persons  together  in  one 
apartment,  are  more  or  less  debilitating  and  unhealthy, 
through  foul  air  and  confinement. 

"  A  woman's  health  is  her  capital.  In  certain  ways  of 
work  she  obtains  more  income,  but  she  spends  on  her  capital 
to  do  it.  In  another  way  she  may  get  less  income,  and  yet 
increase  her  capital.  A  woman  cannot  work  at  dressmak 
ing,  tailoring,  or  any  other  sedentary  employment,  ten  hours 
a  day,  year  in  and  out,  without  enfeebling  her  constitution, 
impairing  her  eyesight,  and  bringing  on  a  complication  of 
complaints,  but  she  can  sweep,  wash,  cook,  and  do  the  va 
ried  duties  of  a  well-ordered  house  with  modern  arrange 
ments,  and  grow  healthier  every  year.  The  times,  in  New 
England,  when  all  women  did  housework  a  part  of  every 
day,  were  the  times  when  all  women  were  healthy.  At 
present,  the  heritage  of  vigorous  muscles,  firm  nerves,  strong 
backs,  and  cheerful  physical  life  has  gone  from  American 
women,  and  is  taken  up  by  Irish  women.  A  thrifty  young 
man  I  have  lately  heard  of  married  a  rosy  young  Irish  girl, 
quite  to  the  horror  of  his  mother  and  sisters,  but  defended 
himself  by  the  following  very  conclusive  logic :  '  If  I  marry 
an  American  girl,  I  must  have  an  Irish  girl  to  take  care  of 
her ;  and  I  cannot  afford  to  support  both.' 

"  Besides  all  this,  there  is  a  third  consideration,  which  I 


THE   TRANSITION  319 

humbly  commend  to  my  friend  Letitia.  The  turn  of  her 
note  speaks  her  a  girl  of  good  common  sense,  with  a  faculty 
of  hitting  the  nail  square  on  the  head ;  and  such  a  girl  must 
see  that  nothing  is  more  likely  to  fall  out  than  that  she 
will  some  day  be  married.  Evidently,  our  fair  friend  is 
born  to  rule  ;  and  at  this  hour,  doubtless,  her  foreordained 
throne  and  humble  servant  are  somewhere  awaiting  her. 

"Now  domestic  service  is  all  the  while  fitting  a  girl 
physically,  mentally,  and  morally  for  her  ultimate  vocation 
and  sphere,  —  to  be  a  happy  wife  and  to  make  a  happy 
home.  But  factory  work,  shop  work,  and  all  employments 
of  that  sort,  are  in  their  nature  essentially  undomestic,  — 
entailing  the  constant  necessity  of  a  boarding-house  life,  and 
of  habits  as  different  as  possible  from  the  quiet  routine  of 
home.  The  girl  who  is  ten  hours  on  the  strain  of  con 
tinued,  unintermitted  toil  feels  no  inclination,  when  even 
ing  comes,  to  sit  down  and  darn  her  stockings,  or  make 
over  her  dresses,  or  study  any  of  those  multifarious  econo 
mies  which  turn  a  wardrobe  to  the  best  account.  Her 
nervous  system  is  nagging ;  she  craves  company  and  excite 
ment  ;  and  her  dull,  narrow  room  is  deserted  for  some  place 
of  amusement  or  gay  street  promenade.  And  who  can 
blame  her  ?  Let  any  sensible  woman,  who  has  had  expe 
rience  of  shop  and  factory  life,  recall  to  her  mind  the  ways 
and  manners  in  which  young  girls  grow  up  who  leave  a 
father's  roof  for  a  crowded  boarding-house,  without  any  su 
pervision  of  matron  or  mother,  and  ask  whether  this  is  the 
best  school  for  training  young  American  wives  and  mothers. 

"  Doubtless  there  are  discreet  and  thoughtful  women  who, 
amid  all  these  difficulties,  do  keep  up  thrifty,  womanly 
habits,  but  they  do  it  by  an  effort  greater  than  the  majority 
of  girls  are  willing  to  make,  and  greater  than  they  ought  to 
make.  To  sew  or  read  or  study  after  ten  hours  of  factory 
or  shop  work  is  a  further  drain  on  the  nervous  powers 
which  no  woman  can  long  endure  without  exhaustion. 


320  THE   CHIMNEY-CORNER 

"  When  the  time  arrives  that  such  a  girl  comes  to  a  house 
of  her  own,  she  comes  to  it  as  unskilled  in  all  household 
lore,  with  muscles  as  incapable  of  domestic  labor  and  nerves 
as  sensitive,  as  if  she  had  been  leading  the  most  luxurious, 
do-nothing,  fashionable  life.  How  different  would  be  her 
preparation,  had  the  forming  years  of  her  life  been  spent  in 
the  labors  of  a  family !  I  know  at  this  moment  a  lady  at 
the  head  of  a  rich  country  establishment,  filling  her  station 
in  society  with  dignity  and  honor,  who  gained  her  domestic 
education  in  a  kitchen  in  our  vicinity.  She  was  the  daugh 
ter  of  a  small  farmer,  and  when  the  time  came  for  her  to  be 
earning  her  living,  her  parents  wisely  thought  it  far  better 
that  she  should  gain  it  in  a  way  which  would  at  the  same 
time  establish  her  health  and  fit  her  for  her  own  future 
home.  In  a  cheerful,  light,  airy  kitchen,  which  was  kept 
so  tidy  always  as  to  be  an  attractive  sitting-room,  she  and 
another  young  country  girl  were  trained  up  in  the  best  of 
domestic  economies  by  a  mistress  who  looked  well  to  the 
ways  of  her  household,  till  at  length  they  married  from  the 
house  with  honor,  and  went  to  practice  in  homes  of  their 
own  the  lessons  they  had  learned  in  the  home  of  another. 
Formerly,  in  New  England,  such  instances  were  not  uncom 
mon  ;  would  that  they  might  become  so  again  !  " 

"The  fact  is,"  said  my  wife,  "  the  places  which  the 
daughters  of  American  farmers  used  to  occupy  in  our  fam 
ilies  are  now  taken  by  young  girls  from  the  families  of 
small  farmers  in  Ireland.  They  are  respectable,  tidy, 
healthy,  and  capable  of  being  taught.  A  good  mistress, 
who  is  reasonable  and  liberal  in  her  treatment,  is  able  to 
make  them  fixtures.  They  get  good  wages,  and  have  few 
expenses.  They  dress  handsomely,  have  abundant  leisure 
to  take  care  of  their  clothes  and  turn  their  wardrobes  to 
the  best  account,  and  they  very  soon  acquire  skill  in  doing 
it  equal  to  that  displayed  by  any  women  of  any  country. 
They  remit  money  continually  to  relatives  in  Ireland,  and 


THE   TRANSITION  321 

from  time  to  time  pay  the  passage  of  one  and  another  to 
this  country,  —  and  whole  families  have  thus  been  estab 
lished  in  American  life  by  the  efforts  of  one  young  girl. 
Now,  for  my  part,  I  do  not  grudge  my  Irish  fellow  citizens 
these  advantages  obtained  by  honest  labor  and  good  conduct ; 
they  deserve  all  the  good  fortune  thus  accruing  to  them. 
But  when  I  see  sickly,  nervous  American  women  jostling 
and  struggling  in  the  few  crowded  avenues  which  are  open 
to  mere  brain,  I  cannot  help  thinking  how  much  better 
their  lot  would  have  been,  with  good  strong  bodies,  steady 
nerves,  healthy  digestion,  and  the  habit  of  looking  any 
kind  of  work  in  the  face,  which  used  to  be  characteristic 
of  American  women  generally,  and  of  Yankee  women  in  par 
ticular." 

"The  matter  becomes  still  graver,"  said  I,  "by  the  laws 
of  descent.  The  woman  who  enfeebles  her  muscular  system 
by  sedentary  occupation,  and  over-stimulates  her  brain  and 
nervous  system,  when  she  becomes  a  mother  perpetuates 
these  evils  to  her  offspring.  Her  children  will  be  born 
feeble  and  delicate,  incapable  of  sustaining  any  severe  strain 
of  body  or  mind.  The  universal  cry  now  about  the  ill 
health  of  young  American  girls  is  the  fruit  of  some  three 
generations  of  neglect  of  physical  exercise  and  undue  stim 
ulus  of  brain  and  nerves.  Young  girls  now  are  universally 
born  delicate.  The  most  careful  hygienic  treatment  during 
childhood,  the  strictest  attention  to  diet,  dress,  and  exercise, 
succeeds  merely  so  far  as  to  produce  a  girl  who  is  healthy 
so  long  only  as  she  does  nothing.  With  the  least  strain, 
her  delicate  organism  gives  out,  now  here,  now  there.  She 
cannot  study  without  her  eyes  fail  or  she  has  headache,  — 
she  cannot  get  up  her  own  muslins,  or  sweep  a  room,  or 
pack  a  trunk,  without  bringing  on  a  backache,  —  she  goes 
to  a  concert  or  a  lecture,  and  must  lie  by  all  the  next  day 
from  the  exertion.  If  she  skates,  she  is  sure  to  strain  some 
muscle  ;  or  if  she  falls  and  strikes  her  knee  or  hits  her 


322  THE   CHIMNEY-CORNER 

ankle,  a  blow  that  a  healthy  girl  would  forget  in  five  min 
utes  terminates  in  some  mysterious  lameness  which  confines 
our  poor  sibyl  for  months. 

"  The  young  American  girl  of  our  times  is  a  creature  who 
has  not  a  particle  of  vitality  to  spare,  —  no  reserved  stock 
of  force  to  draw  upon  in  cases  of  family  exigency.  She  is 
exquisitely  strung,  she  is  cultivated,  she  is  refined ;  but  she 
is  too  nervous,  too  wiry,  too  sensitive,  —  she  burns  away 
too  fast ;  only  the  easiest  of  circumstances,  the  most  watch 
ful  of  care  and  nursing,  can  keep  her  within  the  limits  of 
comfortable  health ;  and  yet  this  is  the  creature  who  must 
undertake  family  life  in  a  country  where  it  is  next  to  an 
absolute  impossibility  to  have  permanent  domestics.  Fre 
quent  change,  occasional  entire  breakdowns,  must  be  the  lot 
of  the  majority  of  housekeepers,  —  particularly  those  who 
do  not  live  in  cities." 

"  In  fact,"  said  my  wife,  "  we  in  America  have  so  far 
got  out  of  the  way  of  a  womanhood  that  has  any  vigor  of 
outline  or  opulence  of  physical  proportions  that,  when  we 
see  a  woman  made  as  a  woman  ought  to  be,  she  strikes  us 
as  a  monster.  Our  willowy  girls  are  afraid  of  nothing  so 
much  as  growing  stout ;  and  if  a  young  lady  begins  to  round 
into  proportions  like  the  women  in  Titian's  and  Giorgione's 
pictures,  she  is  distressed  above  measure,  and  begins  to 
make  secret  inquiries  into  reducing  diet,  and  to  cling  des 
perately  to  the  strongest  corset-lacing  as  her  only  hope.  It 
would  require  one  to  be  better  educated  than  most  of  our 
girls  are,  to  be  willing  to  look  like  the  Sistine  Madonna  or 
the  Venus  of  Milo. 

"  Once  in  a  while  our  Italian  opera-singers  bring  to  our 
shores  those  glorious  physiques  which  formed  the  inspiration 
of  Italian  painters  ;  and  then  American  editors  make  coarse 
jokes  about  Barnum's  fat  woman,  and  avalanches,  and  pre 
tend  to  be  struck  with  terror  at  such  dimensions. 

"  We  should  be  better  instructed,  and  consider  that  Italy 


THE   TRANSITION  323 

does  us  a  favor,  in  sending  us  specimens,  not  only  of  higher 
styles  of  musical  art,  but  of  a  warmer,  richer,  and  more 
abundant  womanly  life.  The  magnificent  voice  is  only  in 
keeping  with  the  magnificent  proportions  of  the  singer.  A 
voice  which  has  no  grate,  no  strain,  which  flows  without 
effort,  —  which  does  not  labor  eagerly  up  to  a  high  note, 
but  alights  on  it  like  a  bird  from  above,  there  carelessly 
warbling  and  trilling,  —  a  voice  which  then  without  effort 
sinks  into  broad,  rich,  sombre  depths  of  soft,  heavy  chest- 
tone,  —  can  come  only  with  a  physical  nature  at  once  strong, 
wide,  and  fine,  —  from  a  nature  such  as  the  sun  of  Italy 
ripens,  as  he  does  her  golden  grapes,  filling  it  with  the  new 
wine  of  song." 

"Well,"  said  I,  "so  much  for  our  strictures  on  Miss 
Letitia's  letter.  What  comes  next  ?  " 

"  Here  is  a  correspondent  who  answers  the  question, 
'  What  shall  we  do  with  her  ? '  —  apropos  of  the  case  of 
the  distressed  young  woman  which  we  considered  in  our 
first  chapter.'7 

"  And  what  does  he  recommend  ?  " 

"'He  tells  us  that  he  should  advise  us  to  make  our  dis 
tressed  woman  Marianne's  housekeeper,  and  to  send  South 
for  three  or  four  contrabands  for  her  to  train,  and,  with 
great  apparent  complacency,  seems  to  think  that  course  will 
solve  all  similar  cases  of  difficulty." 

"  That 's  quite  a  man's  view  of  the  subject,"  said  Jenny. 
"  They  think  any  woman  who  is  n't  particularly  fitted  to 
do  anything  else  can  keep  house." 

"  As  if  housekeeping  were  not  the  very  highest  craft  and 
mystery  of  social  life,"  said  I.  "  I  admit  that  our  sex  speak 
too  unadvisedly  on  such  topics,  and,  being  well  instructed 
by  my  household  priestesses,  will  humbly  suggest  the  fol 
lowing  ideas  to  my  correspondent. 

"  1st.  A  woman  is  not  of  course  fit  to  be  a  housekeeper 
because  she  is  a  woman  of  good  education  and  refinement. 


324  THE   CHIMNEY-CORNER 

"  2d.  If  she  were,  a  family  with  young  children  in  it  is 
not  the  proper  place  to  establish  a  school  for  untaught  con 
trabands,  however  desirable  their  training  may  be. 

"  A  woman  of  good  education  and  good  common  sense 
may  learn  to  be  a  good  housekeeper,  as  she  learns  any  trade, 
by  going  into  a  good  family  and  practicing  first  one  and 
then  another  branch  of  the  business,  till  finally  she  shall 
acquire  the  comprehensive  knowledge  to  direct  all. 

"  The  next  letter  I  will  read  :  - 

"  DEAR  MR.  CROWFIELD,  —  Your  papers  relating  to 
the  domestic  problem  have  touched  upon  a  difficulty  which 
threatens  to  become  a  matter  of  life  and  death  with  me. 

"  I  am  a  young  man,  with  good  health,  good  courage, 
and  good  prospects.  I  have,  for  a  young  man,  a  fair 
income,  and  a  prospect  of  its  increase.  But  my  business 
requires  me  to  reside  in  a  country  town,  near  a  great  manu 
facturing  city.  The  demand  for  labor  there  has  made  such 
a  drain  on  the  female  population  of  the  vicinity,  that  it 
seems,  for  a  great  part  of  the  time,  impossible  to  keep  any 
servants  at  all ;  and  what  we  can  hire  are  of  the  poorest 
quality,  and  want  exorbitant  Mrages.  My  wife  was  a  well- 
trained  housekeeper,  and  knows  perfectly  all  that  pertains 
to  the  care  of  a  family  ;  but  she  has  three  little  children, 
and  a  delicate  babe  only  a  few  weeks  old ;  and  can  any  one 
woman  do  all  that  is  needed  for  such  a  household  ?  Some 
thing  must  be  trusted  to  servants  ;  and  what  is  thus  trusted 
brings  such  confusion  and  waste  and  dirt  into  our  house, 
that  the  poor  woman  is  constantly  distraught  between  the 
disgust  of  having  them  and  the  utter  impossibility  of  doing 
without  them. 

"  Now,  it  has  been  suggested  that  we  remedy  the  trouble 
by  paying  higher  wages ;  but  I  find  that  for  the  very 
highest  wages  I  secure  only  the  most  miserable  service ; 
and  yet,  poor  as  it  is,  we  are  obliged  to  put  up  with  it; 


THE   TRANSITION  325 

because  there  is  an  amount  of  work  to  be  done  in  our  family 
that  is  absolutely  beyond  my  wife's  strength. 

"I  see  her  health  wearing  away  under  these  trials,  her 
life  made  a  burden ;  I  feel   no  power  to  help  her,  and  I 
ask  you,  Mr.  Crowfield,  What  are  we  to  do  ?     What  is  to 
become  of  family  life  in  this  country  ? 
"  Yours  truly, 

"  A  YOUNG  FAMILY  MAN." 

" My  friend's  letter,"  said  I,  "touches  upon  the  very 
hinge  of  the  difficulty  of  domestic  life  with  the  present 
generation. 

"  The  real,  vital  difficulty,  after  all,  in  our  American  life 
is,  that  our  country  is  so  wide,  so  various,  so  abounding  in 
the  richest  fields  of  enterprise,  that  in  every  direction  the 
cry  is  of  the  plenteousness  of  the  harvest  and  the  fewness 
of  the  laborers.  In  short,  there  really  are  not  laborers 
enough  to  do  the  work  of  the  country. 

"  Since  the  war  has  thrown  the  whole  South  open  to 
the  competition  of  free  labor,  the  demand  for  workers  is 
doubled  and  trebled.  Manufactories  of  all  sorts  are  enlarg 
ing  their  borders,  increasing  their  machinery,  and  calling 
for  more  hands.  Every  article  of  living  is  demanded  with 
an  imperativeness  and  over  an  extent  of  territory  which  set 
at  once  additional  thousands  to  the  task  of  production. 
Instead  of  being  easier  to  find  hands  to  execute  in  all 
branches  of  useful  labor,  it  is  likely  to  grow  every  year 
more  difficult,  as  new  departments  of  manufacture  and  trade 
divide  the  workers.  The  price  of  labor,  even  now  higher  in 
this  country  than  in  any  other,  will  rise  still  higher,  and  thus 
complicate  still  more  the  problem  of  domestic  life.  Even  if 
a  reasonable  quota  of  intelligent  women  choose  domestic  ser 
vice,  the  demand  will  be  increasingly  beyond  the  supply." 

"  And  what  have  you  to  say  to  this,"  said  my  wife, 
"  seeing  you  cannot  stop  the  prosperity  of  the  country  ?  " 


02G  THE   CHIMNEY-CORNER 

"  Simply  this,  —  that  communities  will  be  driven  to 
organize,  as  they  now  do  in  Europe,  to  lessen  the  labors  of 
individual  families  by  having  some  of  the  present  domestic 
tasks  done  out  of  the  house. 

"  In  France,  for  example,  no  housekeeper  counts  either 
washing,  ironing,  or  bread-making  as  part  of  her  domestic 
cares.  All  the  family  washing  goes  out  to  a  laundry,  and  be 
ing  attended  to  by  those  who  make  that  department  of  labor 
a  specialty,  it  comes  home  in  refreshingly  beautiful  order. 

"  We  in  America,  though  we  pride  ourselves  on  our 
Yankee  thrift,  are  far  behind  the  French  in  domestic 
economy.  If  all  the  families  of  a  neighborhood  should 
put  together  the  sums  they  separately  spend  in  buying  or 
fitting  up  and  keeping  in  repair  tubs,  boilers,  and  other 
accommodations  for  washing,  all  that  is  consumed  or  wasted 
in  soap,  starch,  bluing,  fuel,  together  with  the  wages  and 
board  of  an  extra  servant,  the  aggregate  would  suffice  to 
fit  up  a  neighborhood  laundry,  where  one  or  two  capable 
women  could  do  easily  and  well  what  ten  or  fifteen  women 
now  do  painfully  and  ill,  and  to  the  confusion  and  derange 
ment  of  all  other  family  processes. 

"  The  model  laundries  for  the  poor  in  London  had  facili 
ties  which  would  enable  a  woman  to  do  both  the  washing 
and  ironing  of  a  small  family  in  from  two  to  three  hours, 
and  were  so  arranged  that  a  very  few  women  could,  with 
ease,  do  the  work  of  a  neighborhood. 

"  But  in  the  absence  of  an  establishment  of  this  sort, 
the  housekeepers  of  a  country  village  might  help  them 
selves  very  much  by  owning  a  mangle  in  common,  to  which 
all  the  heavier  parts  of  the  ironing  could  be  sent.  Ameri 
can  ingenuity  has  greatly  improved  the  machinery  of  the 
mangle.  It  is  no  longer  the  heavy,  cumbersome,  structure 
that  it  used  to  be  in  the  Old  World,  but  a  compact,  neat 
piece  of  apparatus,  made  in  three  or  four  different  sizes  to 
suit  different-sized  apartments. 


THE    TRANSITION  327 

"  Mr.  H.  F.  Bond,  of  Waltham,  Massachusetts,  now 
manufactures  these  articles,  and  sends  them  to  all  parts  of 
the  country.  The  smallest  of  them  does  not  take  up  much 
more  room  than  a  sewing-machine,  can  be  turned  by  a  boy 
of  ten  or  twelve,  and  thus  in  the  course  of  an  hour  or  two 
the  heaviest  and  most  fatiguing  part  of  a  family  ironing  may 
be  accomplished. 

"  I  should  certainly  advise  the  '  Young  Family  Man ' 
with  a  delicate  wife  and  uncertain  domestic  help  to  fortify 
his  kitchen  with  one  of  these  fixtures. 

"  But  after  all,  I  still  say  that  the  quarter  to  which  I 
look  for  the  solution  of  the  American  problem  of  domestic 
life  is  a  wise  use  of  the  principle  of  association. 

"  The  future  model  village  of  New  England,  as  I  see  it, 
shall  have  for  the  use  of  its  inhabitants  not  merely  a  town 
lyceum  hall  and  a  town  library,  but  a  town  laundry,  fitted 
up  with  conveniences  such  as  no  private  house  can  afford, 
and  paying  a  price  to  the  operators  which  will  enable  them 
to  command  an  excellence  of  work  such  as  private  families 
seldom  realize.  It  will  also  have  a  town  bakery,  where 
the  best  of  family  bread,  white,  brown,  and  of  all  grains, 
shall  be  compounded  ;  and  lastly  a  town  cook-shop,  where 
soup  and  meats  may  be  bought,  ready  for  the  table.  Those 
of  us  who  have  kept  house  abroad  remember  the  ease  with 
which  our  foreign  establishments  were  carried  on.  A  suite 
of  elegant  apartments,  a  courier,  and  one  female  servant 
were  the  foundation  of  domestic  life.  Our  courier  boarded 
us  at  a  moderate  expense,  and  the  servant  took  care  of  our 
rooms.  Punctually  at  the  dinner  hour  every  day,  our  din 
ner  came  in  on  the  head  of  a  porter  from  a  neighboring 
cook-shop.  A  large  chest  lined  with  tin,  and  kept  warm 
by  a  tiny  charcoal  stove  in  the  centre,  being  deposited  in 
an  anteroom,  from  it  came  forth  first  soup,  then  fish,  then 
roasts  of  various  names,  and  lastly  pastry  and  confections,  — 
far  more  courses  than  any  reasonable  Christian  needs  to 


328  THE   CHIMNEY-CORNER 

keep  him  in  healthy  condition  ;  and  dinner  being  over,  our 
box  with  its  debris  went  out  of  the  house,  leaving  a  clear 
field. 

"  Now  I  put  it  to  the  distressed  '  Young  Family  Man ' 
whether  these  three  institutions  of  a  bakery,  a  cook-shop, 
and  a  laundry,  in  the  village  where  he  lives,  would  not  vir 
tually  annihilate  his  household  cares,  and  restore  peace  and 
comfort  to  his  now  distracted  family. 

"  There  really  is  no  more  reason  why  every  family  should 
make  its  own  bread  than  its  own  butter,  — why  every  family 
should  do  its  own  washing  and  ironing  than  its  own  tailor 
ing  or  mantua-making.  In  France,  where  certainly  the  arts 
of  economy  are  well  studied,  there  is  some  specialty  for 
many  domestic  needs  for  which  we  keep  servants.  The 
beautiful  inlaid  floors  are  kept  waxed  and  glossy  by  a  pro 
fessional  gentleman  who  wears  a  brush  on  his  foot-sole, 
skates  gracefully  over  the  surface,  and,  leaving  all  right, 
departeth.  Many  families,  each  paying  a  small  sum,  keep 
this  servant  in  common. 

"Now,  if  ever  there  was  a  community  which  needed  to 
study  the  art  of  living,  it  is  our  American  one  ;  for,  at 
present,  domestic  life  is  so  wearing  and  so  oppressive  as 
seriously  to  affect  health  and  happiness.  Whatever  has 
been  done  abroad  in  the  way  of  comfort  and  convenience 
can  be  done  here  ;  and  the  first  neighborhood  that  shall  set 
the  example  of  dividing  the  tasks  and  burdens  of  life  by 
the  judicious  use  of  the  principle  of  association  will  initiate 
a  most  important  step  in  the  way  of  national  happiness  and 
prosperity. 

"  My  solution,  then,  of  the  domestic  problem  may  be  for- 
mulized  as  follows  :  — 

"  1st.  That  women  make  self  helpfulness  and  family 
helpfulness  fashionable,  and  every  woman  use  her  muscles 
daily  in  enough  household  work  to  give  her  a  good  diges 
tion. 


THE   TRANSITION  329 

"  2d.  That  the  situation  of  a  domestic  be  made  so  respec 
table  and  respected  that  well-educated  American  women 
shall  be  induced  to  take  it  as  a  training-school  for  their 
future  family  life. 

"  3d.  That  families  by  association  lighten  the  multifari 
ous  labors  of  the  domestic  sphere. 

"  All  of  which  I  humbly  submit  to  the  good  sense  and 
enterprise  of  American  readers  and  workers." 


VI 

BODILY    RELIGION  :     A    SERMON    ON    GOOD    HEALTH 

OXE  of  our  recent  writers  has  said,  that  "  good  health  is 
physical  religion ;  "  and  it  is  a  saying  worthy  to  be  printed 
in  golden  letters.  But  good  health  being  physical  religion, 
it  fully  shares  that  indifference  with  which  the  human  race 
regards  things  confessedly  the  most  important.  The  neglect 
of  the  soul  is  the  trite  theme  of  all  religious  teachers ;  and, 
next  to  their  souls,  there  is  nothing  that  people  neglect  so 
much  as  their  bodies.  Every  person  ought  to  be  perfectly 
healthy,  just  as  everybody  ought  to  be  perfectly  religious  ; 
but,  in  point  of  fact,  the  greater  part  of  mankind  are  so  far 
from  perfect  moral  or  physical  religion  that  they  cannot 
even  form  a  conception  of  the  blessing  beyond  them. 

The  mass  of  good,  well-meaning  Christians  are  not  yet 
advanced  enough  to  guess  at  the  change  which  a  perfect 
fidelity  to  Christ's  spirit  and  precepts  would  produce  in 
them.  And  the  majority  of  people  who  call  themselves 
well,  because  they  are  not,  at  present,  upon  any  particular 
doctor's  list,  are  not  within  sight  of  what  perfect  health 
would  be.  That  fullness  of  life,  that  vigorous  tone,  and 
that  elastic  cheerfulness,  which  make  the  mere  fact  of  exis 
tence  a  luxury,  that  suppleness  which  carries  one  like  a 
well-built  boat  over  every  wave  of  unfavorable  chance,  — 
these  are  attributes  of  the  perfect  health  seldom  enjoyed. 
We  see  them  in  young  children,  in  animals,  and  now  and 
then,  but  rarely,  in  some  adult  human  being,  who  has  pre 
served  intact  the  religion  of  the  body  through  all  opposing 
influences.  Perfect  health  supposes  not  a  state  of  mere 


BODILY   RELIGION:    A   SERMON   ON   GOOD   HEALTH      331 

quiescence,  but  of  positive  enjoyment  in  living.  See  that 
little  fellow,  as  his  nurse  turns  him  out  in  the  morning, 
fresh  from  his  bath,  his  hair  newly  curled,  and  his  cheeks 
polished  like  apples.  Every  step  is  a  spring  or  a  dance  ; 
he  runs,  he  laughs,  he  shouts,  his  face  breaks  into  a  thou 
sand  dimpling  smiles  at  a  word.  His  breakfast  of  plain 
bread  and  milk  is  swallowed  with  an  eager  and  incredible 
delight,  —  it  is  so  good  that  he  stops  to  laugh  or  thump  the 
table  now  and  then  in  expression  of  his  ecstasy.  All  day 
long  he  runs  and  frisks  and  plays ;  and  when  at  night  the 
little  head  seeks  the  pillow,  down  go  the  eye-curtains,  and 
sleep  comes  without  a  dream.  In  the  morning  his  first  note 
is  a  laugh  and  a  crow,  as  he  sits  up  in  his  crib  and  tries  to 
pull  papa's  eyes  open  with  his  fat  fingers.  He  is  an  em 
bodied  joy,  —  he  is  sunshine  and  music  and  laughter  for  all 
the  house.  With  what  a  magnificent  generosity  does  the 
Author  of  life  endow  a  little  mortal  pilgrim  in  giving  him 
at  the  outset  of  his  career  such  a  body  as  this  !  How  mis 
erable  it  is  to  look  forward  twenty  years,  when  the  same 
child,  now  grown  a  man,  wakes  in  the  morning  with  a  dull, 
heavy  head,  the  consequence  of  smoking  and  studying  till 
twelve  or  one  the  night  before  ;  when  he  rises  languidly  to 
a  late  breakfast,  and  turns  from  this  and  tries  that,  —  wants 
a  deviled  bone,  or  a  cutlet  with  Worcestershire  sauce,  to 
make  eating  possible  ;  and  then,  with  slow  and  plodding 
step,  finds  his  way  to  his  office  and  his  books.  Verily  the 
shades  of  the  prison-house  gather  round  the  growing  boy  ; 
for,  surely,  no  one  will  deny  that  life  often  begins  with 
health  little  less  perfect  than  that  of  the  angels. 

But  the  man  who  habitually  wakes  sodden,  headachy, 
and  a  little  stupid,  and  who  needs  a  cup  of  strong  coffee  and 
various  stimulating  condiments  to  coax  his  bodily  system 
into  something  like  fair  working  order,  does  not  suppose  he 
is  out  of  health.  He  says,  "  Very  well,  I  thank  you,"  to 
your  inquiries,  —  merely  because  he  has  entirely  forgotten 


332  THE    CHIMNEY-CORNER 

what  good  health  is.  He  is  well,  not  because  of  any  par 
ticular  pleasure  in  physical  existence,  but  well  simply  be 
cause  he  is  not  a  subject  for  prescriptions.  Yet  there  is  no 
store  of  vitality,  no  buoyancy,  no  superabundant  vigor,  to 
resist  the  strain  and  pressure  to  which  life  puts  him.  A 
checked  perspiration,  a  draught  of  air  ill-timed,  a  crisis  of 
perplexing  business  or  care,  and  he  is  down  with  a  bilious 
attack  or  an  influenza,  and  subject  to  doctors'  orders  for  an 
indefinite  period.  And  if  the  case  be  so  with  men,  how  is 
it  with  women  ?  How  many  women  have  at  maturity  the 
keen  appetite,  the  joyous  love  of  life  and  motion,  the  elas 
ticity  and  sense  of  physical  delight  in  existence,  that  little 
children  have  ?  How  many  have  any  superabundance  of 
vitality  with  which  to  meet  the  wear  and  strain  of  life  ? 
And  yet  they  call  themselves  well. 

But  is  it  possible,  in  maturity,  to  have  the  joyful  fullness 
of  the  life  of  childhood  ?  Experience  has  shown  that  the 
delicious  freshness  of  this  dawning  hour  may  be  preserved 
even  to  midday,  and  may  be  brought  back  and  restored  after 
it  has  been  for  years  a  stranger.  Nature,  though  a  severe 
disciplinarian,  is  still,  in  many  respects,  most  patient  and 
easy  to  be  entreated,  and  meets  any  repentant  movement  of 
her  prodigal  children  with  wonderful  condescension.  Take 
Bulwer's  account  of  the  first  few  weeks  of  his  sojourn  at 
Malvern,  and  you  will  read,  in  very  elegant  English,  the 
story  of  an  experience  of  pleasure  which  has  surprised  and 
delighted  many  a  patient  at  a  water-cure.  The  return  to 
the  great  primitive  elements  of  health  —  water,  air,  and  sim 
ple  food,  with  a  regular  system  of  exercise  —  has  brought  to 
many  a  jaded,  weary,  worn-down  human  being  the  elastic 
spirits,  the  simple,  eager  appetite,  the  sound  sleep,  of  a  lit 
tle  child.  Hence  the  rude  huts  and  chtilets  of  the  peasant 
Priessnitz  were  crowded  with  battered  dukes  and  princesses 
and  notables  of  every  degree,  who  came  from  the  hot,  ener 
vating  luxury  which  had  drained  them  of  existence,  to  find 


BODILY   RELIGION  :    A   SERMON   ON    GOOD   HEALTH      333 

a  keener  pleasure  in  peasants'  bread  under  peasants'  roofs 
than  in  soft  raiment  and  palaces.  No  arts  of  French  cookery 
can  possibly  make  anything  taste  so  well  to  a  feeble  and 
palled  appetite  as  plain  brown  bread  and  milk  taste  to  a 
hungry  water-cure  patient,  fresh  from  bath  and  exercise. 

If  the  water-cure  had  done  nothing  more  than  establish 
the  fact  that  the  glow  and  joyousness  of  early  life  are  things 
which  may  be  restored  after  having  been  once  wasted,  it 
would  have  done  a  good  work.  For  if  Nature  is  so  forgiv 
ing  to  those  who  have  once  lost  or  have  squandered  her 
treasures,  what  may  not  be  hoped  for  us  if  we  can  learn  the 
art  of  never  losing  the  first  health  of  childhood  ?  And 
though  with  us,  who  have  passed  to  maturity,  it  may  be  too 
late  for  the  blessing,  cannot  something  be  done  for  the  chil 
dren  who  are  yet  to  come  after  us  ? 

Why  is  the  first  health  of  childhood  lost  ?  Is  it  not  the 
answer,  that  childhood  is  the  only  period  of  life  in  which 
bodily  health  is  made  a  prominent  object  ?  Take  our  pretty 
boy,  with  cheeks  like  apples,  who  started  in  life  with  a  hop, 
skip,  and  dance,  —  to  whom  laughter  was  like  breathing, 
and  who  was  enraptured  with  plain  bread  and  milk,  —  how 
did  he  grow  into  the  man  who  wakes  so  languid  and  dull, 
who  wants  strong  coffee  and  Worcestershire  sauce  to  make 
his  breakfast  go  down  ?  When  and  where  did  he  drop  the 
invaluable  talisman  that  once  made  everything  look  brighter 
and  taste  better  to  him,  however  rude  and  simple,  than  now 
do  the  most  elaborate  combinations  ?  What  is  the  boy's 
history  ?  Why,  for  the  first  seven  years  of  his  life  his  body 
is  made  of  some  account.  It  is  watched,  cared  for,  dieted, 
disciplined,  fed  with  fresh  air,  and  left  to  grow  and  develop 
like  a  thrifty  plant.  But  from  the  time  school  education  be 
gins,  the  body  is  steadily  ignored,  and  left  to  take  care  of 
itself. 

The  boy  is  made  to  sit  six  hours  a  day  in  a  close,  hot 
room,  breathing  impure  air,  putting  the  brain  and  the  ner- 


334  THE   CHIMNEY-CORNER 

vous  system  upon  a  constant  strain,  while  the  muscular  sys 
tem  is  repressed  to  an  unnatural  quiet.  During  the  six  hours, 
perhaps  twenty  minutes  are  allowed  for  all  that  play  of  the 
muscles  which,  up  to  this  time,  has  been  the  constant  habit 
of  his  life.  After  this  he  is  sent  home  with  books,  slate, 
and  lessons  to  occupy  an  hour  or  two  more  in  preparing  for 
the  next  day.  In  the  whole  of  this  time  there  is  no  kind 
of  effort  to  train  the  physical  system  by  appropriate  exercise. 
Something  of  the  sort  was  attempted  years  ago  in  the  infant 
schools,  but  soon  given  up ;  and  now,  from  the  time  study 
first  begins,  the  muscles  are  ignored  in  all  primary  schools. 
One  of  the  first  results  is  the  loss  of  that  animal  vigor  which 
formerly  made  the  boy  love  motion  for  its  own  sake.  Even 
in  his  leisure  hours  he  no  longer  leaps  and  runs  as  he  used 
to  ;  he  learns  to  sit  still,  and  by  and  by  sitting  and  lounging 
come  to  be  the  habit,  and  vigorous  motion  the  exception,  for 
most  of  the  hours  of  the  day.  The  education  thus  begun 
goes  on  from  primary  to  high  school,  from  high  school  to 
college,  from  college  through  professional  studies  of  law, 
medicine,  or  theology,  with  this  steady  contempt  for  the 
body,  with  no  provision  for  its  culture,  training,  or  develop 
ment,  but  rather  a  direct  and  evident  provision  for  its  dete 
rioration  and  decay. 

The  want  of  suitable  ventilation  in  school-rooms,  recita 
tion-rooms,  lecture-rooms,  offices,  court-rooms/  conference- 
rooms,  and  vestries,  where  young  students  of  law,  medicine, 
and  theology  acquire  their  earlier  practice,  is  something  sim 
ply  appalling.  Of  itself  it  would  answer  for  men  the  ques 
tion,  why  so  many  thousand  glad,  active  children  come  to  a 
middle  life  without  joy,  —  a  life  whose  best  estate  is  a  sort 
of  slow,  plodding  endurance.  The  despite  and  hatred  which 
most  men  seem  to  feel  for  God's  gift  of  fresh  air,  and  their 
resolution  to  breathe  as  little  of  it  as  possible,  could  only 
come  from  a  long  course  of  education,  in  which  they  have 
been  accustomed  to  live  without  it.  Let  any  one  notice  the 


BODILY   RELIGION :    A   SERMON   ON   GOOD   HEALTH      335 

conduct  of  our  American  people  traveling  in  railroad  cars. 
We  will  suppose  that  about  half  of  them  are  what  might  be 
called  well-educated  people,  who  have  learned  in  books,  or 
otherwise,  that  the  air  breathed  from  the  lungs  is  laden 
with  impurities,  —  that  it  is  noxious  and  poisonous  ;  and 
yet,  travel  with  these  people  half  a  day,  and  you  would 
suppose  from  their  actions  that  they  considered  the  external 
air  as  a  poison  created  expressly  to  injure  them,  and  that 
the  only  course  of  safety  lay  in  keeping  the  cars  hermeti 
cally  sealed,  and  breathing  over  and  over  the  vapor  from 
each  others'  lungs.  If  a  person  in  despair  at  the  intolerable 
foulness  raises  a  window,  what  frowns  from  all  the  neigh 
boring  seats,  especially  from  great  rough-coated  men,  who 
always  seem  the  first  to  be  apprehensive  !  The  request  to 
"  put  down  that  window  "  is  almost  sure  to  follow  a  mo 
ment  or  two  of  fresh  air.  In  vain  have  rows  of  ventilators 
been  put  in  the  tops  of  some  of  the  cars,  for  conductors  and 
passengers  are  both  of  one  mind,  that  these  ventilators  are 
inlets  of  danger,  and  must  be  kept  carefully  closed. 

Railroad  traveling  in  America  is  systematically,  and  one 
would  think  carefully,  arranged  so  as  to  violate  every  possi 
ble  law  of  health.  The  old  rule  to  keep  the  head  cool  and 
the  feet  warm  is  precisely  reversed.  A  red-hot  stove  heats 
the  upper  stratum  of  air  to  oppression,  while  a  stream  of 
cold  air  is  constantly  circulating  about  the  lower  extremities. 
The  most  indigestible  and  unhealthy  substances  conceivable 
are  generally  sold  in  the  cars  or  at  way -stations  for  the  con 
fusion  and  distress  of  the  stomach.  Rarely  can  a  traveler 
obtain  so  innocent  a  thing  as  a  plain  good  sandwich  of  bread 
and  meat,  while  pie,  cake,  doughnuts,  and  all  other  culinary 
atrocities  are  almost  forced  upon  him  at  every  stopping- 
place.  In  France,  England,  and  Germany,  the  railroad  cars 
are  perfectly  ventilated ;  the  feet  are  kept  warm  by  flat 
cases  filled  with  hot  water  and  covered  with  carpet,  and 
answering  the  double  purpose  of  warming  the  feet  and  dif- 


336  THE   CHIMNEY-CORNER 

fusing  an  agreeable  temperature  through  the  car,  without 
burning  away  the  vitality  of  the  air ;  while  the  arrange 
ments  at  the  refreshment-rooms  provide  for  the  passenger  as 
wholesome  and  well-served  a  meal  of  healthy,  nutritious 
food  as  could  be  obtained  in  any  home  circle. 

What  are  we  to  infer  concerning  the  home  habits  of  a  na 
tion  of  men  who  so  resignedly  allow  their  bodies  to  be  poi 
soned  and  maltreated  in  traveling  over  such  an  extent  of 
territory  as  is  covered  by  our  railroad  lines  ?  Does  it  not 
show  that  foul  air  and  improper  food  are  too  much  matters 
of  course  to  excite  attention  ?  As  a  writer  in  "  The  Na 
tion  "  has  lately  remarked,  it  is  simply  and  only  because  the 
American  nation  like  to  have  unventilated  cars,  and  to  be 
fed  on  pie  and  coffee  at  stopping-places,  that  nothing  better 
is  known  to  our  travelers ;  if  there  were  any  marked  dislike 
of  such  a  state  of  things  on  the  part  of  the  people,  it  would 
not  exist.  We  have  wealth  enough,  and  enterprise  enough, 
and  ingenuity  enough,  in  our  American  nation,  to  compass 
with  wonderful  rapidity  any  end  that  really  seems  to  us 
desirable.  An  army  was  improvised  when  an  army  was 
wanted,  —  and  an  army  more  perfectly  equipped,  more  boun 
tifully  fed,  than  so  great  a  body  of  men  ever  was  before. 
Hospitals,  Sanitary  Commissions,  and  Christian  Commis 
sions  all  arose  out  of  the  simple  conviction  of  the  American 
people  that  they  must  arise.  If  the  American  people  were 
equally  convinced  that  foul  air  was  a  poison,  —  that  to  have 
cold  feet  and  hot  heads  was  to  invite  an  attack  of  illness,  — 
that  maple-sugar,  popcorn,  peppermint  candy,  pie,  dough 
nuts,  and  peanuts  are  not  diet  for  reasonable  beings,  — they 
would  have  railroad  accommodations  very  different  from 
those  now  in  existence. 

We  have  spoken  of  the  foul  air  of  court-rooms.  What 
better  illustration  could  be  given  of  the  utter  contempt 
with  which  the  laws  of  bodily  health  are  treated,  than  the 
condition  of  these  places  ?  Our  lawyers  are  our  highly 


BODILY  RELIGION  :  A  SERMON  ON  GOOD  HEALTH   337 

educated  men.  They  have  been  through  high-school  and 
college  training,  they  have  learned  the  properties  of  oxygen, 
nitrogen,  and  carbonic-acid  gas,  and  have  seen  a  mouse  die 
under  an  exhausted  receiver,  and  of  course  they  know  that 
foul,  unventilated  rooms  are  bad  for  the  health  ;  and  yet 
generation  after  generation  of  men  so  taught  and  trained 
will  spend  the  greater  part  of  their  lives  in  rooms  notorious 
for  their  close  and  impure  air,  without  so  much  as  an  at 
tempt  to  remedy  the  evil.  A  well-ventilated  court-room  is 
a  four-leaved  clover  among  court-rooms.  Young  men  are 
constantly  losing  their  health  at  the  bar  ;  lung  diseases, 
dyspepsia,  follow  them  up,  gradually  sapping  their  vitality. 
Some  of  the  brightest  ornaments  of  the  profession  have  ac 
tually  fallen  dead  as  they  stood  pleading,  —  victims  of  the 
fearful  pressure  of  poisonous  and  heated  air  upon  the  excited 
brain.  The  deaths  of  Salmon  P.  Chase  of  Portland,  uncle 
of  our  present  Chief  Justice,  and  of  Ezekiel  Webster,  the 
brother  of  our  great  statesman,  are  memorable  examples  of 
the  calamitous  effects  of  the  errors  dwelt  upon ;  and  yet, 
strange  to  say,  nothing  efficient  is  done  to  mend  these  errors, 
and  give  the  body  an  equal  chance  with  the  mind  in  the 
pressure  of  the  world's  affairs. 

But  churches,  lecture-rooms,  and  vestries,  and  all  build 
ings  devoted  especially  to  the  good  of  the  soul,  are  equally 
witness  of  the  mind's  disdain  of  the  body's  needs,  and  the 
body's  consequent  revenge  upon  the  soul.  In  how  many 
of  these  places  has  the  question  of  a  thorough  provision  of 
fresh  air  been  even  considered  ?  People  would  never  think 
of  bringing  a  thousand  persons  into  a  desert  place  and  keep 
ing  them  there  without  making  preparations  to  feed  them. 
Bread  and  butter,  potatoes  and  meat,  must  plainly  be  found 
for  them  ;  but  a  thousand  human  beings  are  put  into  a 
building  to  remain  a  given  number  of  hours,  and  no  one 
asks  the  question  whether  means  exist  for  giving  each  one 
the  quantum  of  fresh  air  needed  for  his  circulation,  and 


338  THE    CHIMNEY-CORNER 

these  thousand  victims  will  consent  to  be  slowly  poisoned, 
gasping,  sweating,  getting  red  in  the  face,  with  confused 
and  sleepy  brains,  while  a  minister  with  a  yet  redder  face 
and  a  more  oppressed  brain  struggles  and  wrestles,  through 
the  hot,  seething  vapors,  to  make  clear  to  them  the  myste 
ries  of  faith.  How  many  churches  are  there  that  for  six  or 
eight  months  in  the  year  are  never  ventilated  at  all,  except 
by  the  accidental  opening  of  doors  ?  The  foul  air  gener 
ated  by  one  congregation  is  locked  up  by  the  sexton  for 
the  use  of  the  next  assembly  ;  and  so  gathers  and  gathers 
from  week  to  week,  and  month  to  month,  while  devout 
persons  upbraid  themselves,  and  are  ready  to  tear  their  hair, 
because  they  always  feel  stupid  and  sleepy  in  church.  The 
proper  ventilation  of  their  churches  and  vestries  would  re 
move  that  spiritual  deadness  of  which  their  prayers  and 
hymns  complain.  A  man  hoeing  his  corn  out  on  a  breezy 
hillside  is  bright  and  alert,  his  mind  works  clearly,  and  he 
feels  interested  in  religion,  and  thinks  of  many  a  thing  that 
might  be  said  at  the  prayer-meeting  at  night.  But  at  night, 
when  he  sits  down  in  a  little  room  where  the  air  reeks  with 
the  vapor  of  his  neighbor's  breath  and  the  smoke  of  kero 
sene  lamps,  he  finds  himself  suddenly  dull  and  drowsy,  — 
without  emotion,  without  thought,  without  feeling,  —  and 
he  rises  and  reproaches  himself  for  this  state  of  things.  He 
calls  upon  his  soul  and  all  that  is  within  him  to  bless  the 
Lord ;  but  the  indignant  body,  abused,  insulted,  ignored, 
takes  the  soul  by  the  throat,  and  says,  "  If  you  won't  let 
me  have  a  good  time,  neither  shall  you."  Revivals  of  reli 
gion,  with  ministers  and  with  those  people  whose  moral  or 
ganization  leads  them  to  take  most  interest  in  them,  often 
end  in  periods  of  bodily  ill  health  and  depression.  But  is 
there  any  need  of  this  ?  Suppose  that  a  revival  of  religion 
required,  as  a  formula,  that  all  the  members  of  a  given  con 
gregation  should  daily  take  a  minute  dose  of  arsenic  in  con 
cert,  —  we  should  not  be  surprised  after  a  while  to  hear  of 


BODILY   11ELIGION:    A   SEEMON   ON   GOOD    HEALTH      339 

various  ill  effects  therefrom  ;  and,  as  vestries  and  lecture- 
rooms  arc  now  arranged,  a  daily  prayer-meeting  is  often 
nothing  more  nor  less  than  a  number  of  persons  spending 
half  an  hour  a  day  breathing  poison  from  each  other's  lungs. 
There  is  not  only  no  need  of  this,  but,  on  the  contrary,  a 
good  supply  of  pure  air  would  make  the  daily  prayer-meet 
ing  far  more  enjoyable.  The  body,  if  allowed  the  slightest 
degree  of  fair  play,  so  far  from  being  a  contumacious  infidel 
and  opposer,  becomes  a  very  fair  Christian  helper,  and,  in 
stead  of  throttling  the  soul,  gives  it  wings  to  rise  to  celes 
tial  regions. 

This  branch  of  our  subject  we  will  quit  with  one  signifi 
cant  anecdote.  A  certain  rural  church  was  somewhat  famous 
for  its  picturesque  Gothic  architecture,  and  equally  famous 
for  its  sleepy  atmosphere,  the  rules  of  Gothic  symmetry 
requiring  very  small  windows,  which  could  be  only  partially 
opened.  Everybody  was  affected  alike  in  this  church;  min 
ister  and  people  complained  that  it  was  like  the  enchanted 
ground  in  the  Pilgrim's  Progress.  Do  Avhat  they  would, 
sleep  was  ever  at  their  elbows;  the  blue,  red,  and  green  of 
the  painted  windows  melted  into  a  rainbow  dimness  of  hazy 
confusion  ;  and  ere  they  were  aware,  they  were  off  on  a 
cloud  to  the  land  of  dreams. 

An  energetic  sister  in  the  church  suggested  the  inquiry, 
whether  it  was  ever  ventilated,  and  discovered  that  it  was 
regularly  locked  up  at  the  close  of  service,  and  remained  so 
till  opened  for  the  next  week.  She  suggested  the  inquiry, 
whether  giving  the  church  a  thorough  airing  on  Saturday 
would  not  improve  the  Sunday  services  ;  but  nobody  acted 
on  her  suggestion.  Finally,  she  borrowed  the  sexton's  key 
one  Saturday  night,  and  went  into  the  church  and  opened 
all  the  windows  herself,  and  let  them  remain  so  for  the 
night.  The  next  day  everybody  remarked  the  improved 
comfort  of  the  church,  and  wondered  what  had  produced 
the  change.  Nevertheless,  when  it  was  discovered,  it  was 


340  THE   CHIMNEY-CORNER 

not  deemed  a  matter  of  enough  importance  to  call  for  an 
order  on  the  sexton  to  perpetuate  the  improvement. 

The  ventilation  of  private  dwellings  in  this  country  is 
such  as  might  be  expected  from  that  entire  indifference  to 
the  laws  of  health  manifested  in  public  establishments. 
Let  a  person  travel  in  private  conveyance  up  through  the 
valley  of  the  Connecticut,  and  stop  for  a  night  at  the  taverns 
which  he  will  usually  find  at  the  end  of  each  day's  stage. 
The  bedchamber  into  which  he  will  be  ushered  will  be  the 
concentration  of  all  forms  of  bad  air.  The  house  is  redolent 
of  the  vegetables  in  the  cellar,  —  cabbages,  turnips,  and 
potatoes  ;  and  this  fragrance  is  confined  and  retained  by  the 
custom  of  closing  the  window  blinds  and  dropping  the  inside 
curtains,  so  that  neither  air  nor  sunshine  enters  in  to  purify. 
Add  to  this  the  strong  odor  of  a  new  feather  bed  and  pil 
lows,  and  you  have  a  combination  of  perfumes  most  appalling 
to  a  delicate  sense.  Yet  travelers  take  possession  of  these 
rooms,  sleep  in  them  all  night  without  raising  the  window 
or  opening  the  blinds,  and  leave  them  to  be  shut  up  for 
other  travelers. 

The  spare  chamber  of  many  dwellings  seems  to  be  an 
hermetically  closed  box,  opened  only  twice  a  year,  for  spring 
and  fall  cleaning  ;  but  for  the  rest  of  the  time  closed  to  the 
sun  and  the  air  of  heaven.  Thrifty  country  housekeepers 
often  adopt  the  custom  of  making  their  beds  on  the  instant 
after  they  are  left,  without  airing  the  sheets  and  mattresses ; 
and  a  bed  so  made  gradually  becomes  permeated  with  the 
insensible  emanations  of  the  human  body,  so  as  to  be  a 
steady  corrupter  of  the  atmosphere. 

In  the  winter,  the  windows  are  calked  and  listed,  the 
throat  of  the  chimney  built  up  with  a  tight  brick  wall,  and 
a  close  stove  is  introduced  to  help  burn  out  the  vitality  of 
the  air.  In  a  sitting-room  like  this,  from  five  to  ten  persons 
will  spend  about  eight  months  of  the  year,  with  no  other 
ventilation  than  that  gained  by  the  casual  opening  and 


BODILY   RELIGION  :    A   SERMON   ON    GOOD   HEALTH      341 

shutting  of  doors.  Is  it  any  wonder  that  consumption  every 
year  sweeps  away  its  thousands  ?  —  that  people  are  suffering 
constant  chronic  ailments,  —  neuralgia,  nervous  dyspepsia, 
and  all  the  host  of  indefinite  bad  feelings  that  rob  life  of 
sweetness  and  flower  and  bloom  ? 

A  recent  writer  raises  the  inquiry,  whether  the  community 
would  not  gain  in  health  by  the  demolition  of  all  dwelling- 
houses.  That  is,  he  suggests  the  question,  whether  the 
evils  from  foul  air  are  not  so  great  and  so  constant  that 
they  countervail  the  advantages  of  shelter.  Consumptive 
patients  far  gone  have  been  known  to  be  cured  by  long 
journeys,  which  have  required  them  to  be  day  and  night  in 
the  open  air.  Sleep  under  the  open  heaven,  even  though 
the  person  be  exposed  to  the  various  accidents  of  weather, 
has  often  proved  a  miraculous  restorer  after  everything  else 
had  failed.  But  surely,  if  simple  fresh  air  is  so  healing  and 
preserving  a  thing,  some  means  might  be  found  to  keep  the 
air  in  a  house  just  as  pure  and  vigorous  as  it  is  outside. 

An  article  in  the  May  number  of  "  Harpers'  Magazine  " 
presents  drawings  of  a  very  simple  arrangement  by  which 
any  house  can  be  made  thoroughly  self-ventilating.  Venti 
lation,  as  this  article  shows,  consists  in  two  things, — a 
perfect  and  certain  expulsion  from  the  dwelling  of  all  foul 
air  breathed  from  the  lungs  or  arising  from  any  other  cause, 
and  the  constant  supply  of  pure  air. 

One  source  of  foul  air  cannot  be  too  much  guarded 
against,  —  we  mean  imperfect  gas-pipes.  A  want  of  thor 
oughness  in  execution  is  the  sin  of  our  American  artisans, 
and  very  few  gas-fixtures  are  so  thoroughly  made  that  more 
or  less  gas  does  not  escape  and  mingle  with  the  air  of  the 
dwelling.  There  are  parlors  where  plants  cannot  be  made 
to  live,  because  the  gas  kills  them  ;  and  yet  their  occupants 
do  not  seem  to  reflect  that  an  air  in  which  a  plant  cannot 
live  must  be  dangerous  for  a  human  being.  The  very  clem 
ency  and  long-suffering  of  Nature  to  those  who  persistently 


342  THE   CHIMNEY-CORNER 

violate  her  laws  is  one  great  cause  why  men  are,  physically 
speaking,  such  sinners  as  they  are.  If  foul  air  poisoned  at 
once  and  completely,  we  should  have  well-ventilated  houses, 
whatever  else  we  failed  to  have.  But  because  people  can 
go  on  for  weeks,  months,  and  years  breathing  poisons,  and 
slowly  and  imperceptibly  lowering  the  tone  of  their  vital 
powers,  and  yet  be  what  they  call  "  pretty  well,  I  thank 
you,"  sermons  on  ventilation  and  fresh  air  go  by  them  as 
an  idle  song.  "  I  don't  see  but  we  are  well  enough,  and 
we  never  took  much  pains  about  these  things.  There 's 
air  enough  gets  into  houses,  of  course.  What  with  doors 
opening  and  windows  occasionally  lifted,  the  air  of  houses  is 
generally  good  enough  ;  "  —  and  so  the  matter  is  dismissed. 

One  of  Heaven's  great  hygienic  teachers  is  now  abroad  in 
the  world,  giving  lessons  on  health  to  the  children  of  men. 
The  cholera  is  like  the  angel  whom  God  threatened  to  send 
as  leader  to  the  rebellious  Israelites.  "  Beware  of  him,  obey 
his  voice,  and  provoke  him  not ;  for  he  will  not  pardon  your 
transgressions."  The  advent  of  this  fearful  messenger  seems 
really  to  be  made  necessary  by  the  contempt  with  which 
men  treat  the  physical  laws  of  their  being.  What  else  could 
have  purified  the  dark  places  of  New  York  ?  What  a 
wiping-up  and  reforming  and  cleansing  is  going  before  him 
through  the  country  !  At  last  we  find  that  Nature  is  in 
earnest,  and  that  her  laws  cannot  be  always  ignored  with 
impunity.  Poisoned  air  is  recognized  at  last  as  an  evil,  — 
even  although  the  poison  cannot  be  weighed,  measured,  or 
tasted  ;  and  if  all  the  precautions  that  men  are  now  willing 
to  take  could  be  made  perpetual,  the  alarm  would  be  a  bless 
ing  to  the  world. 

Like  the  principles  of  spiritual  religion,  the  principles  of 
physical  religion  are  few  and  easy  to  be  understood.  An 
old  medical  apothegm  personifies  the  hygienic  forces  as  the 
Doctors  Air,  Diet,  Exercise,  and  Quiet :  and  these  four  will 
be  found,  on  reflection,  to  cover  the  whole  ground  of  what 


BODILY  RELIGION:  A  SERMON  ON  GOOD  HEALTH   343 

is  required  to  preserve  human  health.  A  human  being 
whose  lungs  have  always  been  nourished  by  pure  air,  whose 
stomach  has  been  fed  only  by  appropriate  food,  whose  mus 
cles  have  been  systematically  trained  by  appropriate  exer 
cises,  and  whose  mind  is  kept  tranquil  by  faith  in  God  and 
a  good  conscience,  has  perfect  physical  religion.  There  is 
a  line  where  physical  religion  must  necessarily  overlap  spir 
itual  religion  and  rest  upon  it.  No  human  being  can  be 
assured  of  perfect  health,  through  all  the  strain  and  wear 
and  tear  of  such  cares  and  such  perplexities  as  life  brings, 
without  the  rest  of  faith  in  God.  An  unsubmissive,  uncon- 
fiding,  unresigned  soul  will  make  vain  the  best  hygienic 
treatment ;  and,  on  the  contrary,  the  most  saintly  religious 
resolution  and  purpose  may  be  defeated  and  vitiated  by  an 
habitual  ignorance  and  disregard  of  the  laws  of  the  physical 
system. 

Perfect  spiritual  religion  cannot  exist  without  perfect 
physical  religion.  Every  flaw  and  defect  in  the  bodily  sys 
tem  is  just  so  much  taken  from  the  spiritual  vitality  :  we 
are  commanded  to  glorify  God,  not  simply  in  our  spirits, 
but  in  our  bodies  and  spirits.  The  only  example  of  perfect 
manhood  the  world  ever  saw  impresses  us  more  than  any 
thing  else  by  an  atmosphere  of  perfect  healthiness.  There 
is  a  calmness,  a  steadiness,  in  the  character  of  Jesus,  a  nat 
uralness  in  his  evolution  of  the  sublimest  truths  under  the 
strain  of  the  most  absorbing  and  intense  excitement,  that 
could  come  only  from  the  one  perfectly  trained  and  devel 
oped  body,  bearing  as  a  pure  and  sacred  shrine  the  One 
Perfect  Spirit.  Jesus  of  Nazareth,  journeying  on  foot  from 
city  to  city,  always  calm  yet  always  fervent,  always  steady 
yet  glowing  with  a  white  heat  of  sacred  enthusiasm,  able  to 
walk  and  teach  all  day  and  afterwards  to  continue  in  prayer 
all  night,  with  unshaken  nerves,  sedately  patient,  serenely 
reticent,  perfectly  self-controlled,  walked  the  earth,  the  only 
man  that  perfectly  glorified  God  in  His  body  no  less  than  in 


344  THE  CHIMNEY-COENER 

His  spirit.  It  is  worthy  of  remark,  that  in  choosing  His 
disciples  He  chose  plain  men  from  the  laboring  classes,  who 
had  lived  the  most  obediently  to  the  simple,  unperverted 
laws  of  nature.  He  chose  men  of  good  and  pure  bodies,  — 
simple,  natural,  childlike,  healthy  men,  —  and  baptized  their 
souls  with  the  inspiration  of  the  Holy  Spirit. 

The  hygienic  bearings  of  the  New  Testament  have  never 
been  sufficiently  understood.  The  basis  of  them  lies  in  the 
solemn  declaration,  that  our  bodies  are  to  be  temples  of  the 
Holy  Spirit,  and  that  all  abuse  of  them  is  of  the  nature  of 
sacrilege.  Reverence  for  the  physical  system,  as  the  out 
ward  shrine  and  temple  of  the  spiritual,  is  the  peculiarity  of 
the  Christian  religion.  The  doctrine  of  the  resurrection  of 
the  body,  and  its  physical  immortality,  sets  the  last  crown 
of  honor  upon  it.  That  bodily  system  which  God  declared 
worthy  to  be  gathered  back  from  the  dust  of  the  grave,  and 
re-created,  as  the  soul's  immortal  companion,  must  neces 
sarily  be  dear  and  precious  in  the  eyes  of  its  Creator.  The 
one  passage  in  the  New  Testament  in  which  it  is  spoken  of 
disparagingly  is  where  Paul  contrasts  it  with  the  brighter 
glory  of  what  is  to  come  :  "  He  shall  change  our  vile  bodies, 
that  they  may  be  fashioned  like  his  glorious  body."  From 
this  passage  has  come  abundance  of  reviling  of  the  physical 
system.  Memoirs  of  good  men  are  full  of  abuse  of  it,  as  the 
clog,  the  load,  the  burden,  the  chain.  It  is  spoken  of  as 
pollution,  as  corruption,  —  in  short,  one  would  think  that 
the  Creator  had  imitated  the  cruelty  of  some  Oriental  despots 
who  have  been  known  to  chain  a  festering  corpse  to  a  living 
body.  Accordingly,  the  memoirs  of  these  pious  men  are 
also  mournful  records  of  slow  suicide,  wrought  by  the  per 
sistent  neglect  of  the  most  necessary  and  important  laws  of 
the  bodily  system;  and  the  body,  outraged  and  downtrod 
den,  has  turned  traitor  to  the  soul,  and  played  the  adversary 
with  fearful  power.  Who  can  tell  the  countless  temptations 
to  evil  which  flow  in  from  a  neglected,  disordered,  deranged 


BODILY   RELIGION:     A   SERMON   ON   GOOD   HEALTH      345 

nervous  system,  —  temptations  to  anger,  to  irritability,  to 
selfishness,  to  every  kind  of  sin  of  appetite  and  passion  ? 
No  wonder  that  the  poor  soul  longs  for  the  hour  of  release 
from  such  a  companion. 

But  that  human  body  which  God  declares  expressly  was 
made  to  be  the  temple  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  which  he  con 
siders  worthy  to  be  perpetuated  by  a  resurrection  and  an 
immortal  existence,  cannot  be  intended  to  be  a  clog  and  a 
hindrance  to  spiritual  advancement.  A  perfect  body,  work 
ing  in  perfect  tune  and  time,  would  open  glimpses  of  hap 
piness  to  the  soul  approaching  the  joys  we  hope  for  in 
heaven.  It  is  only  through  the  images  of  things  which  our 
bodily  senses  have  taught  us,  that  we  can  form  any  concep 
tion  of  that  future  bliss ;  and  the  more  perfect  these  senses, 
the  more  perfect  our  conceptions  must  be. 

The  conclusion  of  the  whole  matter,  and  the  practical 
application  of  this  sermon,  is,  —  First,  that  all  men  set 
themselves  to  form  the  idea  of  what  perfect  health  is,  and 
resolve  to  realize  it  for  themselves  and  their  children. 
Second,  that  with  a  view  to  this  they  study  the  religion  of 
the  body,  in  such  simple  and  popular  treatises  as  those  of 
George  Combe,  Dr.  Dio  Lewis,  and  others,  and  with  sim 
ple  and  honest  hearts  practice  what  they  there  learn. 
Third,  that  the  training  of  the  bodily  system  should  form  a 
regular  part  of  our  common-school  education,  —  every  com 
mon  school  being  provided  with  a  well -instructed  teacher 
of  gymnastics  ;  and  the  growth  and  development  of  each 
pupil's  body  being  as  much  noticed  and  marked  as  is  now 
the  growth  of  his  mind.  The  same  course  should  be  contin 
ued  and  enlarged  in  colleges  and  female  seminaries,  which 
should  have  professors  of  hygiene  appointed  to  give  thorough 
instruction  concerning  the  laws  of  health. 

And  when  this  is  all  done,  we  may  hope  that  crooked 
spines,  pimpled  faces,  sallow  complexions,  stooping  shoul 
ders,  and  all  other  signs  indicating  an  undeveloped  physi- 


346  THE   CHIMNEY-CORNER 

cal  vitality,  will,  in  the  course  of  a  few  generations,  dis 
appear  from  the  earth,  and  men  will  have  bodies  which  will 
glorify  God,  their  great  Architect. 

The  soul  of  man  has  got  as  far  as  it  can  without  the 
body.  Religion  herself  stops  and  looks  back,  waiting  for 
the  body  to  overtake  her.  The  soul's  great  enemy  and 
hindrance  can  be  made  her  best  friend  and  most  power 
ful  help  ;  and  it  is  high  time  that  this  era  were  begun. 
We  old  sinners,  who  have  lived  carelessly,  and  almost 
spent  our  day  of  grace,  may  not  gain  much  of  its  good ;  but 
the  children,  —  shall  there  not  be  a  more  perfect  day  for 
them  ?  Shall  there  not  come  a  day  when  the  little  child, 
whom  Christ  set  forth  to  his  disciples  as  the  type  of  the 
greatest  in  the  kingdom  of  heaven,  shall  be  the  type  no  less 
of  our  physical  than  our  spiritual  advancement,  —  when  men 
and  women  shall  arise,  keeping  through  long  and  happy 
lives  the  simple,  unperverted  appetites,  the  joyous  freshness 
of  spirit,  the  keen  delight  in  mere  existence,  the  dreamless 
sleep  and  happy  waking  of  early  childhood  ? 


VII 

HOW  SHALL  WE  ENTERTAIN  OUR  COMPANY 

"  THE  fact  is,"  said  Marianne,  "  we  must  have  a  party. 
Bob  don't  like  to  hear  of  it,  but  it  must  come.  We  are  in 
debt  to  everybody  :  we  have  been  invited  everywhere,  and 
never  had  anything  like  a  party  since  we  were  married,  and 
it  won't  do." 

"  For  my  part,  I  hate  parties,"  said  Bob.  "  They  put 
your  house  all  out  of  order,  give  all  the  women  a  sick-head 
ache,  and  all  the  men  an  indigestion  ;  you  never  see  any 
body  to  any  purpose ;  the  girls  look  bewitched,  and  the 
women  answer  you  at  cross-purposes,  and  call  you  by  the 
name  of  your  next-door  neighbor,  in  their  agitation  of  mind. 
We  stay  out  beyond  our  usual  bedtime,  come  home  and 
find  some  baby  crying,  or  child  who  has  been  sitting  up  till 
nobody  knows  when  ;  and  the  next  morning,  when  I  must 
be  at  my  office  by  eight,  and  wife  must  attend  to  her  chil 
dren,  we  are  sleepy  and  headachy.  I  protest  against  mak 
ing  overtures  to  entrap  some  hundred  of  my  respectable 
married  friends  into  this  snare  which  has  so  often  entangled 
me.  If  I  had  my  way,  I  would  never  go  to  another  party  ; 
and  as  to  giving  one  —  I  suppose,  since  my  empress  has  de 
clared  her  intentions,  that  I  shall  be  brought  into  doing  it ; 
but  it  shall  be  under  protest." 

"  But,  you  see,  we  must  keep  up  society,"  said  Marianne. 

"  But  I  insist  on  it,"  said  Bob,  "it  is  n't  keeping  up  society. 
What  earthly  thing  do  you  learn  about  people  by  meeting 
them  in  a  general  crush,  where  all  are  coming,  going,  laugh 
ing,  talking,  and  looking  at  each  other  ?  No  person  of 


348  THE   CHIMNEY-CORNER 

common  sense  ever  puts  forth  any  idea  he  cares  twopence 
about,  under  such  circumstances  ;  all  that  is  exchanged  is  a 
certain  set  of  commonplaces  and  platitudes  which  people 
keep  for  parties,  just  as  they  do  their  kid  gloves  and  finery. 
Now  there  are  our  neighbors,  the  Browns.  When  they  drop 
in  of  an  evening,  she  knitting,  and  he  with  the  last  arti 
cle  in  the  paper,  she  really  comes  out  with  a  great  deal  of 
fresh,  lively,  earnest,  original  talk.  We  have  a  good  time, 
and  I  like  her  so  much  that  it  quite  verges  on  loving  ;  but 
see  her  in  a  party,  when  she  manifests  herself  over  five 
or  six  flounces  of  pink  silk  and  a  perfect  egg-froth  of  tulle, 
her  head  adorned  with  a  thicket  of  creped  hair  and  roses, 
and  it  is  plain  at  first  view  that  talking  with  her  is  quite 
out  of  the  question.  What  has  been  done  to  her  head  on 
the  outside  has  evidently  had  some  effect  within,  for  she  is 
no  longer  the  Mrs.  Brown  you  knew  in  her  every-day  dress, 
but  Mrs.  Brown  in  a  party  state  of  mind,  and  too  distracted 
to  think  of  anything  in  particular.  She  has  a  few  words 
that  she  answers  to  everything  you  say,  as  for  example,  f  Oh, 
very  !  '  '  Certainly  !  '  '  How  extraordinary  !  7  '  So  happy  to/ 
etc.  The  fact  is,  that  she  has  come  into  a  state  in  which 
any  real  communication  with  her  mind  and  character  must 
be  suspended  till  the  party  is  over  and  she  is  rested.  Now 
I  like  society,  which  is  the  reason  why  I  hate  parties." 

"  But  you  see,"  said  Marianne,  "  what  are  we  to  do  ? 
Everybody  can't  drop  in  to  spend  an  evening  with  you.  If 
it  were  not  for  these  parties,  there  are  quantities  of  your 
acquaintances  whom  you  would  never  meet." 

"  And  of  what  use  is  it  to  meet  them  ?  Do  you  really 
know  them  any  better  for  meeting  them  got  up  in  unusual 
dresses,  and  sitting  down  together  when  the  only  thing  ex 
changed  is  the  remark  that  it  is  hot  or  cold,  or  it  rains,  or 
it  is  dry,  or  any  other  patent  surface-fact  that  answers  the 
purpose  of  making  believe  you  are  talking  when  neither  of 
you  is  saying  a  word  ?  " 


HOW    SHALL   WE    ENTERTAIN    OUR    COMPANY  349 

"  Well,  now,  for  my  part,"  said  Marianne,  "  I  confess  I 
like  parties :  they  amuse  me.  I  come  home  feeling  kinder  and 
better  to  people,  just  for  the  little  I  see  of  them  when  they 
are  all  dressed  up  and  in  good  humor  with  themselves.  To 
be  sure  we  don't  say  anything  very  profound,  —  I  don't  think 
the  most  of  us  have  anything  profound  to  say  ;  but  I  ask 
Mrs.  Brown  where  she  buys  her  lace,  and  she  tells  me  how  she 
washes  it,  and  somebody  else  tells  me  about  her  baby,  and 
promises  me  a  new  sack-pattern.  Then  I  like  to  see  the 
pretty,  nice  young  girls  flirting  with  the  nice  young  men  ; 
and  I  like  to  be  dressed  up  a  little  myself,  even  if  my  finery 
is  all  old  and  many  times  made  over.  It  does  me  good  to 
be  rubbed  up  and  brightened." 

"  Like  old  silver,' '  said  Bob. 

"  Yes,  like  old  silver,  precisely  ;  and  even  if  I  do  come 
home  tired,  it  does  my  mind  good  to  have  that  change  of 
scene  and  faces.  You  men  do  not  know  what  it  is  to  be 
tied  to  house  and  nursery  all  day,  and  what  a  perfect  weari 
ness  and  lassitude  it  often  brings  on  us  women.  For  my 
part  I  think  parties  are  a  beneficial  institution  of  society, 
and  that  it  is  worth  a  good  deal  of  fatigue  and  trouble  to 
get  one  up." 

"  Then  there  7s  the  expense,"  said  Bob.  "  What  earthly 
need  is  there  of  a  grand  regale  of  oysters,  chicken  salad,  ice 
creams,  coffee,  and  champagne,  between  eleven  and  twelve 
o'clock  at  night,  when  no  one  of  us  would  ever  think  of 
wanting  or  taking  any  such  articles  upon  our  stomachs  in 
our  own  homes  ?  If  we  were  all  of  us  in  the  habit  of  hav 
ing  a  regular  repast  at  that  hour,  it  might  be  well  enough 
to  enjoy  one  with  our  neighbor ;  but  the  party  fare  is  gen 
erally  just  so  much  in  addition  to  the  honest  three  meals 
which  we  have  eaten  during  the  day.  Now,  to  spend  from 
fifty  to  one,  two,  or  three  hundred  dollars  in  giving  all  our 
friends  an  indigestion  from  a  midnight  meal  seems  to  me  a 
very  poor  investment.  Yet  if  we  once  begin  to  give  the 


350  THE    CHIMNEY-CORNER 

party,  we  must  have  everything  that  is  given  at  the  other 
parties,  or  wherefore  do  we  live  ?  And  caterers  and  waiters 
rack  their  brains  to  devise  new  forms  of  expense  and  ex 
travagance  ;  and  when  the  bill  comes  in,  one  is  sure  to  feel 
that  one  is  paying  a  great  deal  of  money  for  a  great  deal  of 
nonsense.  It  is  in  fact  worse  than  nonsense,  because  our  dear 
friends  are,  in  half  the  cases,  not  only  no  better,  but  a  great 
deal  worse,  for  what  they  have  eaten." 

'•But  there  is  this  advantage  to  society,"  said  Rudolph,  — 
"  it  helps  us  young  physicians.  What  would  the  physicians 
do  if  parties  were  abolished  ?  Take  all  the  colds  that  are 
caught  by  our  fair  friends  with  low  necks  and  short  sleeves, 
all  the  troubles  from  dancing  in  tight  dresses  and  inhaling 
bad  air,  and  all  the  headaches  and  indigestion  from  the 
melange  of  lobster  salad,  two  or  three  kinds  of  ice-cream, 
cake,  and  coffee  on  delicate  stomachs,  and  our  profession  gets 
a  degree  of  encouragement  that  is  worthy  to  be  thought 
of." 

"  But  the  question  arises,"  said  my  wife,  "  whether  there 
are  not  ways  of  promoting  social  feeling  less  expensive,  more 
simple  and  natural  and  rational.  I  am  inclined  to  think 
that  there  are." 

"  Yes,"  said  Theophilus  Thoro ;  "  for  large  parties  are 
not,  as  a  general  thing,  given  with  any  wish  or  intention 
of  really  improving  our  acquaintance  with  our  neighbors. 
In  many  cases  they  are  openly  and  avowedly  a  general  trib 
ute  paid  at  intervals  to  society,  for  and  in  consideration  of 
which  you  are  to  sit  with  closed  blinds  and  doors  and  be 
let  alone  for  the  rest  of  the  year.  Mrs.  Bogus,  for  instance, 
lives  to  keep  her  house  in  order,  her  closets  locked,  her 
silver  counted  and  in  the  safe,  and  her  china-closet  in  un 
disturbed  order.  Her  '  best  things '  are  put  away  with  such 
admirable  precision,  in  so  many  wrappings  and  foldings, 
and  secured  with  so  many  a  twist  and  twine,  that  to  get 
them  out  is  one  of  the  seven  labors  of  Hercules,  not  to  be 


HOW   SHALL   WE   ENTERTAIN   OUR   COMPANY       351 

lightly  or  unadvisedly  taken  in  hand,  but  reverently,  dis 
creetly,  and  once  for  all,  in  an  annual  or  biennial  party.  Then 
says  Mrs.  Bogus,  '  For  Heaven's  sake,  let 's  have  every  crea 
ture  we  can  think  of,  and  have  'em  all  over  with  at  once. 
For  pity's  sake,  let 's  have  no  driblets  left  that  we  shall  have 
to  be  inviting  to  dinner  or  to  tea.  No  matter  whether  they 
can  come  or  not,  —  only  send  them  the  invitation,  and  our 
part  is  done  ;  and,  thank  Heaven !  we  shall  be  free  for  a 
year.'  " 

"  Yes,"  said  my  wife ;  "a  great  stand-up  party  bears  just 
the  same  relation  towards  the  offer  of  real  hospitality  and 
good  will  as  Miss  Sally  Brass's  offer  of  meat  to  the  little 
hungry  Marchioness,  when,  with  a  bit  uplifted  on  the  end 
of  a  fork,  she  addressed  her,  e  Will  you  have  this  piece  of 
meat  ?  No  ?  Well,  then,  remember  and  don't  say  you 
have  n't  had  meat  offered  to  you  !  '  You  are  invited  to  a 
general  jam,  at  the  risk  of  your  life  and  health  ;  and  if  you 
refuse,  don't  say  you  have  n't  had  hospitality  offered  to  you. 
All  our  debts  are  wiped  out  •  and  our  slate  clean  ;  now  we 
will  have  our  own  closed  doors,  no  company  and  no  trouble, 
and  our  best  china  shall  repose  undisturbed  on  its  shelves. 
Mrs.  Bogus  says  she  never  could  exist  in  the  way  that  Mrs. 
Easygo  does,  with  a  constant  drip  of  company,  — two  or  three 
to  breakfast  one  day,  half  a  dozen  to  dinner  the  next,  and 
little  evening  gatherings  once  or  twice  a  week.  It  must  keep 
her  house  in  confusion  all  the  time  ;  yet,  for  real  social 
feeling,  real  exchange  of  thought  and  opinion,  there  is  more 
of  it  in  one  half-hour  at  Mrs.  Easygo's  than  in  a  dozen  of 
Mrs.  Bogus's  great  parties. 

"  The  fact  is,  that  Mrs.  Easygo  really  does  like  the 
society  of  human  beings.  She  is  genuinely  and  heartily 
social ;  and,  in  consequence,  though  she  has  very  limited 
means,  and  no  money  to  spend  in  giving  great  entertainments, 
her  domestic  establishment  is  a  sort  of  social  exchange,  where 
more  friendships  are  formed,  more  real  acquaintance  made, 


352  THE   CHIMNEY-CORNER 

and  more  agreeable  hours  spent,  than  in  any  other  place  that 
can  be  named.  She  never  has  large  parties,  —  great  general 
pay-days  of  social  debts,  —  but  small,  well-chosen  circles  of 
people,  selected  so  thoughtfully,  with  a  view  to  the  pleas 
ure  which  congenial  persons  give  each  other,  as  to  make  the 
invitation  an  act  of  real  personal  kindness.  She  always 
manages  to  have  something  for  the  entertainment  of  her 
friends,  so  that  they  are  not  reduced  to  the  simple  alterna 
tive  of  gaping  at  each  other's  dresses  and  eating  lobster  salad 
and  ice-cream.  There  is  either  some  choice  music,  or  a  read 
ing  of  fine  poetry,  or  a  well-acted  charade,  or  a  portfolio 
of  photographs  and  pictures,  to  enliven  the  hour  and  start 
conversation  ;  and  as  the  people  are  skillfully  chosen  with 
reference  to  each  other,  as  there  is  no  hurry  or  heat  or  con 
fusion,  conversation,  in  its  best  sense,  can  bubble  up,  fresh, 
genuine,  clear,  and  sparkling  as  a  woodland  spring,  and  one 
goes  away  really  rested  and  refreshed.  The  slight  enter 
tainment  provided  is  just  enough  to  enable  you  to  eat  salt 
together  in  Arab  fashion,  —  not  enough  to  form  the  leading 
feature  of  the  evening.  A  cup  of  tea  and  a  basket  of  cake, 
or  a  salver  of  ices,  silently  passed  at  quiet  intervals,  do  not 
interrupt  conversation  or  overload  the  stomach." 

"  The  fact  is,"  said  I,  "  that  the  art  of  society  among  us 
Anglo-Saxons  is  yet  in  its  rudest  stages.  We  are  not,  as  a 
race,  social  and  confiding,  like  the  French  and  Italians  and 
Germans.  We  have  a  word  for  home,  and  our  home  is 
often  a  moated  grange,  an  island,  a  castle  with  its  drawbridge 
up,  cutting  us  off  from  all  but  our  own  home-circle.  In 
France  and  Germany  and  Italy  there  are  the  boulevards  and 
public  gardens,  where  people  do  their  family  living  in  com 
mon.  Mr.  A.  is  breakfasting  under  one  tree,  with  wife  and 
children  around,  and  Mr.  B.  is  breakfasting  under  another 
tree,  hard  by  ;  and  messages,  nods,  and  smiles  pass  backward 
and  forward.  Families  see  each  other  daily  in  these  public 
resorts,  and  exchange  mutual  offices  of  good  will.  Perhaps 


HOW   SHALL  WE   ENTERTAIN   OUR   COMPANY        353 

from  these  customs  of  society  come  that  na'ive  simplicity  and 
abandon  which  one  remarks  in  the  Continental,  in  opposi 
tion  to  the  Anglo-Saxon,  habits  of  conversation.  A  French 
man  or  an  Italian  will  talk  to  you  of  his  feeling  and  plans 
and  prospects  with  an  unreserve  that  is  perfectly  unaccount 
able  to  you,  who  have  always  felt  that  such  things  must  be 
kept  for  the  very  innermost  circle  of  home  privacy.  But  the 
Frenchman  or  Italian  has  from  a  child  been  brought  up  to 
pass  his  family  life  in  places  of  public  resort,  in  constant 
contact  and  intercommunion  with  other  families;  and  the 
social  and  conversational  instinct  has  thus  been  daily  strength 
ened.  Hence  the  reunions  of  these  people  have  been  char 
acterized  by  a  sprightliness  and  vigor  and  spirit  that  the 
Anglo-Saxon  has  in  vain  attempted  to  seize  and  reproduce. 
English  and  American  conversazioni  have  very  generally 
proved  a  failure,  from  the  rooted,  frozen  habit  of  reticence 
and  reserve  which  grows  with  our  growth  and  strengthens 
with  our  strength.  The  fact  is,  that  the  Angle-Saxon  race 
as  a  race  does  not  enjoy  talking,  and,  except  in  rare  instances, 
does  not  talk  well.  A  daily  convocation  of  people,  without 
refreshments  or  any  extraneous  object  but  the  simple  pleas 
ure  of  seeing  and  talking  with  each  other,  is  a  thing  that 
can  scarcely  be  understood  in  English  or  American  society. 
Social  entertainment  presupposes  in  the  Anglo-Saxon  mind 
something  to  eat,  and  not  only  something,  but  a  great  deal. 
Enormous  dinners  or  great  suppers  constitute  the  entertain 
ment.  Nobody  seems  to  have  formed  the  idea  that  the  talk 
ing  —  the  simple  exchange  of  social  feelings  —  is,  of  itself, 
the  entertainment,  and  that  being  together  is  the  pleasure. 

"  Madame  Recamier  for  years  had  a  circle  of  friends  who 
met  every  afternoon  in  her  salon  from  four  to  six  o'clock, 
for  the  simple  and  sole  pleasure  of  talking  with  each  other. 
The  very  first  wits  and  men  of  letters  and  statesmen  and 
savans  were  enrolled  in  it,  and  each  brought  to  the  enter 
tainment  some  choice  morceau  which  he  had  laid  aside  from 


354  THE    CHIMNEY-CORNER 

his  own  particular  field  to  add  to  the  feast.  The  daily  in 
timacy  gave  each  one  such  perfect  insight  into  all  the  others7 
habits  of  thought,  tastes,  and  preferences,  that  the  conversa 
tion  was  like  the  celebrated  music  of  the  Conservatoire  in 
Paris,  a  concert  of  perfectly  chorded  instruments  taught  by 
long  habit  of  harmonious  intercourse  to  keep  exact  time  and 
tune  together. 

"  Keal  conversation  presupposes  intimate  acquaintance. 
People  must  see  each  other  often  enough  to  wear  off  the 
rough  bark  and  outside  rind  of  commonplaces  and  conven 
tionalities  in  which  their  real  ideas  are  enwrapped,  and 
give  forth  without  reserve  their  innermost  and  best  feel 
ings.  Now  what  is  called  a  large  party  is  the  first  and  rud 
est  form  of  social  intercourse.  The  most  we  can  say  of  it  is, 
that  it  is  better  than  nothing.  Men  and  women  are  crowded 
together  like  cattle  in  a  pen.  They  look  at  each  other, 
they  jostle  each  other,  exchange  a  few  common  bleatings, 
and  eat  together ;  and  so  the  performance  terminates.  One 
may  be  crushed  evening  after  evening  against  men  or  wo 
men,  and  learn  very  little  about  them.  You  may  decide 
that  a  lady  is  good-tempered,  when  any  amount  of  tram 
pling  on  the  skirt  of  her  new  silk  dress  brings  no  cloud  to 
her  brow.  But  is  it  good  temper,  or  only  wanton  careless 
ness,  which  cares  nothing  for  waste  ?  You  can  see  that  a 
man  is  not  a  gentleman  who  squares  his  back  to  ladies  at 
the  supper-table,  and  devours  boned  turkey  and  pate  defoie 
f/ras,  while  they  vainly  reach  over  and  around  him  for 
something,  and  that  another  is  a  gentleman  so  far  as  to  pre 
fer  the  care  of  his  weaker  neighbors  to  the  immediate  in 
dulgence  of  his  own  appetites  ;  but  further  than  this  you 
learn  little.  Sometimes,  it  is  true,  in  some  secluded  corner, 
two  people  of  fine  nervous  system,  undisturbed  by  the  gen 
eral  confusion,  may  have  a  sociable  half-hour,  and  really 
part  feeling  that  they  like  each  other  better,  and  know 
more  of  each  other  than  before.  Yet  these  general  gather- 


HOW   SHALL   WE    ENTERTAIN   OUR   COMPANY        355 

ings  have,  after  all,  their  value.  They  are  not  so  good  as 
something  better  would  be,  but  they  cannot  be  wholly  dis 
pensed  with.  It  is  far  better  that  Mrs.  Bogus  should  give 
an  annual  party,  when  she  takes  down  all  her  bedsteads 
and  throws  open  her  whole  house,  than  that  she  should 
never  see  her  friends  and  neighbors  inside  her  doors  at  all. 
She  may  feel  that  she  has  neither  the  taste  nor  the  talent 
for  constant  small  reunions.  Such  things,  she  may  feel, 
require  a  social  tact  which  she  has  not.  She  would  be  ut 
terly  at  a  loss  how  to  conduct  them.  Each  one  would  cost 
her  as  much  anxiety  and  thought  as  her  annual  gathering, 
and  prove  a  failure  after  all  ;  whereas  the  annual  demonstra 
tion  can  be  put  wholly  into  the  hands  of  the  caterer,  who 
comes  in  force,  with  flowers,  silver,  china,  servants,  and, 
taking  the  house  into  his  own  hands,  gives  her  entertain 
ment  for  her,  leaving  to  her  no  responsibility  but  the  pay 
ment  of  the  bills ;  and  if  Mr.  Bogus  does  not  quarrel  with 
them,  we  know  no  reason  why  any  one  else  should  ;  and  I 
think  Mrs.  Bogus  merits  well  of  the  republic,  for  doing 
what  she  can  do  towards  the  hospitalities  of  the  season. 
1 7m  sure  I  never  cursed  her  in  my  heart,  even  when  her 
strong  coffee  has  held  mine  eyes  open  till  morning,  and 
her  superlative  lobster  salads  have  given  me  the  very  dark 
est  views  of  human  life  that  ever  dyspepsia  and  east  wind 
could  engender.  Mrs.  Bogus  is  the  Eve  who  offers  the 
apple  ;  but  after  all,  I  am  the  foolish  Adam  who  take  and 
eat  what  I  know  is  going  to  hurt  me,  and  I  am  too  gallant 
to  visit  my  sins  on  the  head  of  my  too  obliging  tempter. 
In  country  places  in  particular,  where  little  is  going  on  and 
life  is  apt  to  stagnate,  a  good,  large,  generous  party,  which 
brings  the  whole  neighborhood  into  one  house  to  have  a  jolly 
time,  to  eat,  drink,  and  be  merry,  is  really  quite  a  work  of 
love  and  mercy.  People  see  one  another  in  their  best 
clothes,  and  that  is  something  ;  the  elders  exchange  all  man 
ner  of  simple  pleasantries  and  civilities,  and  talk  over  their 


356  THE   CHIMNEY-CORNER 

domestic  affairs,  while  the  young  people  flirt,  in  that  whole 
some  manner  which  is  one  of  the  safest  of  youthful  follies. 
A  country  party,  in  fact,  may  be  set  down  as  a  work  of  be 
nevolence,  and  the  money  expended  thereon  fairly  charged 
to  the  account  of  the  great  cause  of  peace  and  good  will  on 
earth." 

"  But  don't  you  think,'7  said  my  wife,  "  that,  if  the 
charge  of  providing  the  entertainment  were  less  laborious, 
these  gatherings  could  be  more  frequent  ?  You  see,  if 
a  woman  feels  that  she  must  have  five  kinds  of  cake,  and 
six  kinds  of  preserves,  and  even  ice-cream  and  jellies  in  a 
region  where  no  confectioner  comes  in  to  abbreviate  her 
labors,  she  will  sit  with  closed  doors,  and  do  nothing  to 
wards  the  general  exchange  of  life,  because  she  cannot  do 
as  much  as  Mrs.  Smith  or  Mrs.  Parsons.  If  the  idea  of 
meeting  together  had  some  other  focal  point  than  eating, 
I  think  there  would  be  more  social  feeling.  It  might  be  a 
musical  reunion,  where  the  various  young  people  of  a  circle 
agreed  to  furnish  each  a  song  or  an  instrumental  perform 
ance.  It  might  be  an  impromptu  charade  party,  bringing 
out  something  of  that  taste  in  arrangement  of  costume,  and 
capacity  for  dramatic  effect,  of  which  there  is  more  latent 
in  society  than  we  think.  It  might  be  the  reading  of  arti 
cles  in  prose  and  poetry  furnished  to  a  common  paper  or 
portfolio,  which  would  awaken  an  abundance  of  interest 
and  speculation  on  the  authorship,  or  it  might  be  dramatic 
readings  and  recitations.  Any  or  all  of  these  pastimes  might 
make  an  evening  so  entertaining  that  a  simple  cup  of  tea 
and  a  plate  of  cake  or  biscuit  would  be  all  the  refreshment 
needed." 

"  We  may  with  advantage  steal  a  leaf  now  and  then  from 
some  foreign  book,"  said  I.  "  In  France  and  Italy,  fam 
ilies  have  their  peculiar  days  set  apart  for  the  reception  of 
friends  at  their  own  houses.  The  whole  house  is  put  upon 
a  footing  of  hospitality  and  invitation,  and  the  whole  mind 


HOW  SHALL  WE  ENTERTAIN  OUR  COMPANY   357 

is  given  to  receiving  the  various  friends.  In  the  evening 
the  salon  is  filled.  The  guests,  coming  from  week  to  week, 
for  years,  become  in  time  friends  ;  the  resort  has  the  charm 
of  a  home  circle ;  there  are  certain  faces  that  you  are  al 
ways  sure  to  meet  there.  A  lady  once  said  to  me  of  a  cer 
tain  gentleman  and  lady  whom  she  missed  from  her  circle, 
'  They  have  been  at  our  house  every  Wednesday  evening 
for  twenty  years.'  It  seems  to  me  that  this  frequency  of 
meeting  is  the  great  secret  of  agreeable  society.  One  sees, 
in  our  American  life,  abundance  of  people  who  are  every 
thing  that  is  charming  and  cultivated,  but  one  never  sees 
enough  of  them.  One  meets  them  at  some  quiet  reunion, 
passes  a  delightful  hour,  thinks  how  charming  they  are, 
and  wishes  one  could  see  more  of  them.  But  the  pleasant 
meeting  is  like  the  encounter  of  two  ships  in  mid-ocean  : 
away  we  sail,  each  on  his  respective  course,  to  see  each 
other  no  more  till  the  pleasant  remembrance  has  died  away. 
Yet  were  there  some  quiet,  homelike  resort  where  we 
might  turn  in  to  renew  from  time  to  time  the  pleasant  in 
tercourse,  to  continue  the  last  conversation,  and  to  compare 
anew  our  readings  and  our  experiences,  the  pleasant  hour 
of  liking  would  ripen  into  a  warm  friendship. 

"  But  in  order  that  this  may  be  made  possible  and  prac 
ticable,  the  utmost  simplicity  of  entertainment  must  pre 
vail.  In  a  French  salon  all  is  to  the  last  degree  informal. 
The  louilloire,  the  French  teakettle,  is  often  tended  by 
one  of  the  gentlemen,  who  aids  his  fair  neighbors  in  the 
mysteries  of  tea-making.  One  nymph  is  always  to  be  found 
at  the  table  dispensing  tea  and  talk  ;  and  a  basket  of  simple 
biscuit  and  cakes,  offered  by  another,  is  all  the  further  repast. 
The  teacups  and  cake-basket  are  a  real  addition  to  the  scene, 
because  they  cause  a  little  lively  social  bustle,  a  little  chat 
ter  and  motion,  —  always  of  advantage  in  breaking  up  stiff 
ness,  and  giving  occasion  for  those  graceful,  airy  nothings 
that  answer  so  good  a  purpose  in  facilitating  acquaintance. 


358  THE   CHIMNEY-CORNER 

"  Nothing  can  be  more  charming  than  the  description 
which  Edmond  About  gives,  in  his  novel  of  '  Tolla,'  of  the 
reception  evenings  of  an  old  noble  Roman  family,  —  the 
spirit  of  repose  and  quietude  through  all  the  apartments  ; 
the  ease  of  coming  and  going  ;  the  perfect  homelike  spirit 
in  which  the  guests  settle  themselves  to  any  employment 
of  the  hour  that  best  suits  them  :  some  to  lively  chat, 
some  to  dreamy,  silent  lounging,  some  to  a  game,  others  in 
a  distant  apartment  to  music,  and  others  still  to  a  prome 
nade  along  the  terraces. 

"  One  is  often  in  a  state  of  mind  and  nerves  which  indis 
poses  for  the  effort  of  active  conversation  j  one  wishes  to 
rest,  to  observe,  to  be  amused  without  an  effort ;  and  a 
mansion  which  opens  wide  its  hospitable  arms,  and  offers 
itself  to  you  as  a  sort  of  home,  where  you  may  rest,  and  do 
just  as  the  humor  suits  you,  is  a  perfect  godsend  at  such 
times.  You  are  at  home  there,  your  ways  are  understood, 
you  can  do  as  you  please,  —  come  early  or  late,  be  brilliant 
or  dull,  —  you  are  always  welcome.  If  you  can  do  nothing 
for  the  social  whole  to-night,  it  matters  not.  There  are 
many  more  nights  to  come  in  the  future,  and  you  are  enter 
tained  on  trust,  without  a  challenge. 

"  I  have  one  friend,  —  a  man  of  genius,  subject  to  the 
ebbs  and  flows  of  animal  spirits  which  attend  that  organ 
ization.  Of  general  society  he  has  a  nervous  horror.  A 
regular  dinner  or  evening  party  is  to  him  a  terror,  an  im 
possibility  ;  but  there  is  a  quiet  parlor  where  stands  a 
much-worn  old  sofa,  and  it  is  his  delight  to  enter  without 
knocking,  and  be  found  lying  with  half-shut  eyes  on  this 
friendly  couch,  while  the  family  life  goes  on  around  him 
without  a  question.  Nobody  is  to  mind  him,  to  tease  him 
with  inquiries  or  salutations.  If  he  will,  he  breaks  into 
the  stream  of  conversation,  and  sometimes,  rousing  up  from 
one  of  these  dreamy  trances,  finds  himself,  ere  he  or  they 
know  how,  in  the  mood  for  free  and  friendly  talk.  People 


HOW   SHALL  WE   ENTERTAIN   OUR   COMPANY        359 

often  wonder,  (  How  do  you  catch  So-and-so  ?  He  is  so 
shy  !  I  have  invited  and  invited,  and  he  never  comes.' 
We  never  invite,  and  he  comes.  We  take  no  note  of  his 
coming  or  his  going  ;  we  do  not  startle  his  entrance  with 
acclamation,  nor  clog  his  departure  with  expostulation ;  it 
is  fully  understood  that  with  us  he  shall  do  just  as  he 
chooses ;  and  so  he  chooses  to  do  much  that  we  like. 

"  The  sum  of  this  whole  doctrine  of  society  is,  that  we 
are  to  try  the  value  of  all  modes  and  forms  of  social  enter 
tainment  by  their  effect  in  producing  real  acquaintance  and 
real  friendship  and  good  will.  The  first  and  rudest  form 
of  seeking  this  is  by  a  great  promiscuous  party,  which  sim 
ply  effects  this,  —  that  people  at  least  see  each  other  on 
the  outside,  and  eat  together.  Next  come  all  those  various 
forms  of  reunion  in  which  the  entertainment  consists  of  some 
thing  higher  than  staring  and  eating,  —  some  exercise  of 
the  faculties  of  the  guests  in  music,  acting,  recitation,  read 
ing,  etc.  ;  and  these  are  a  great  advance,  because  they  show 
people  what  is  in  them,  and  thus  lay  a  foundation  for  a 
more  intelligent  appreciation  and  acquaintance.  These  are 
the  best  substitute  for  the  expense,  show,  and  trouble  of 
large  parties.  They  are  in  their  nature  more  refining  and 
intellectual.  It  is  astonishing,  when  people  really  put  to 
gether,  in  some  one  club  or  association,  all  the  different  tal 
ents  for  pleasing  possessed  by  different  persons,  how  clever 
a  circle  may  be  gathered,  —  in  the  least  promising  neighbor 
hood.  A  club  of  ladies  in  one  of  our  cities  has  had  quite 
a  brilliant  success.  It  is  held  every  fortnight  at  the  houses 
of  the  members,  according  to  alphabetical  sequence.  The 
lady  who  receives  has  charge  of  arranging  what  the  enter 
tainment  shall  be,  —  whether  charade,  tableau,  reading, 
recitation,  or  music  ;  and  the  interest  is  much  increased  by 
the  individual  taste  shown  in  the  choice  of  the  diversion 
and  the  variety  which  thence  follows. 

"  In  the  summertime,  in  the  country,  open-air  reunions 


360  THE   CHIMNEY-CORNER 

are  charming  forms  of  social  entertainment.  Croquet  par 
ties,  which  bring  young  people  together  by  daylight  for 
a  healthy  exercise,  and  end  with  a  moderate  share  of  the 
evening,  are  a  very  desirable  amusement.  What  are  called 
'  lawn  teas '  are  finding  great  favor  in  England  and  some 
parts  of  our  country.  They  are  simply  an  early  tea  enjoyed 
in  a  sort  of  picnic  style  in  the  grounds  about  the  house. 
Such  an  entertainment  enables  one  to  receive  a  great  many 
at  a  time,  without  crowding,  and,  being  in  its  very  idea 
rustic  and  informal,  can  be  arranged  with  very  little  ex 
pense  or  trouble.  With  the  addition  of  lanterns  in  the  trees 
and  a  little  music,  this  entertainment  may  be  carried  on  far 
into  the  evening  with  a  very  pretty  effect. 

"  As  to  dancing,  I  have  this  much  to  say  of  it.  Either 
our  houses  must  be  all  built  over  and  made  larger,  or  female 
crinolines  must  be  made  smaller,  or  dancing  must  continue 
as  it  now  is,  the  most  absurd  and  ungraceful  of  all  attempts 
at  amusement.  The  effort  to  execute  round  dances  in  the 
limits  of  modern  houses,  in  the  prevailing  style  of  dress,  can 
only  lead  to  developments  more  startling  than  agreeable. 
Dancing  in  the  open  air,  on  the  shaven  green  of  lawns,  is  a 
pretty  and  graceful  exercise,  and  there  only  can  full  sweep 
be  allowed  for  the  present  feminine  toilet. 

"  The  English  breakfast  is  an  institution  growing  in  favor 
here,  and  rightfully,  too ;  for  a  party  of  fresh,  good-natured, 
well-dressed  people,  assembled  at  breakfast  on  a  summer 
morning,  is  as  nearly  perfect  a  form  of  reunion  as  can  be 
devised.  All  are  in  full  strength  from  their  night's  rest ; 
the  hour  is  fresh  and  lovely,  and  they  are  in  condition  to 
give  each  other  the  very  cream  of  their  thoughts,  the  first 
keen  sparkle  of  the  uncorked  nervous  system.  The  only 
drawback  is  that,  in  our  busy  American  life,  the  most  de 
sirable  gentlemen  often  cannot  spare  their  morning  hours. 
Breakfast  parties  presuppose  a  condition  of  leisure  ;  but 


HOW  SHALL  WE  ENTERTAIN  OUR  COMPANY   361 

when  they  can  be  compassed,  they  are  perhaps  the  most 
perfectly  enjoyable  of  entertainments." 

"  Well,"  said  Marianne,  "  I  begin  to  waver  about  my 
party.  I  don't  know,  after  all,  but  the  desire  of  paying  off 
social  debts  prompted  the  idea  ;  perhaps  we  might  try  some 
of  the  agreeable  things  suggested.  But,  dear  me  !  there  ?s 
the  baby.  We'll  finish  the  talk  some  other  time." 


VIII 

HOW    SHALL    WE    BE    AMUSED 

"  ONE,  two,  three,  four,  —  this  makes  the  fifth  accident 
on  the  Fourth  of  July,  in  the  two  papers  I  have  just  read," 
said  Jenny. 

"A  very  moderate  allowance,"  said  Theophilus  Thoro, 
"  if  you  consider  the  Fourth  as  a  great  national  saturnalia, 
in  which  every  boy  in  the  land  has  the  privilege  of  doing 
whatever  is  right  in  his  own  eyes." 

"  The  poor  boys  !  "  said  Mrs.  Crowfield.  «  All  the 
troubles  of  the  world  are  laid  at  their  door." 

"  Well,"  said  Jenny,  "  they  did  burn  the  city  of  Portland, 
it  appears.  The  fire  arose  from  firecrackers,  thrown  by 
boys  among  the  shavings  of  a  carpenter's  shop,  —  so  says 
the  paper." 

"  And,"  said  Kudolph,  "  we  surgeons  expect  a  harvest  of 
business  from  the  Fourth,  as  surely  as  from  a  battle.  Cer 
tain  to  be  woundings,  fractures,  possibly  amputations,  follow 
ing  the  proceedings  of  our  glorious  festival." 

"  Why  cannot  we  Americans  learn  to  amuse  ourselves 
peaceably  like  other  nations  ?  "  said  Bob  Stephens.  "  In 
France  and  Italy,  the  greatest  national  festivals  pass  off 
without  fatal  accident,  or  danger  to  any  one.  The  fact  is, 
in  our  country  we  have  not  learned  Iww  to  be  amused. 
Amusement  has  been  made  of  so  small  account  in  our  phi 
losophy  of  life,  that  we  are  raw  and  unpracticed  in  being 
amused.  Our  diversions,  compared  with  those  of  the 
politer  nations  of  Europe,  are  coarse  and  savage,  —  and  con 
sist  mainly  in  making  disagreeable  noises  and  disturbing  the 


HOW    SHALL   WE    BE   AMUSED  3G3 

peace  of  the  community  by  rude  uproar.  The  only  idea 
an  American  boy  associates  with  the  Fourth  of  July  is  that 
of  gunpowder  in  some  form,  and  a  wild  liberty  to  fire  off 
pistols  in  all  miscellaneous  directions,  and  to  throw  fire 
crackers  under  the  heels  of  horses,  and  into  crowds  of  women 
and  children,  for  the  fun  of  seeing  the  stir  and  commotion 
thus  produced.  Now  take  a  young  Parisian  boy  and  give 
him  a  fete,  and  he  conducts  himself  with  greater  gentleness 
and  good  breeding,  because  he  is  part  of  a  community  in 
which  the  art  of  amusement  has  been  refined  and  perfected, 
so  that  he  has  a  thousand  resources  beyond  the  very  obvious 
one  of  making  a  great  banging  and  disturbance. 

"  Yes,"  continued  Bob  Stephens,  the  fact  is,  that  our 
grim  old  Puritan  fathers  set  their  feet  down  resolutely  on 
all  forms  of  amusement ;  they  would  have  stopped  the 
lambs  from  wagging  their  tails,  and  shot  the  birds  for  sing 
ing,  if  they  could  have  had  their  way  ;  and  in  consequence 
of  it,  what  a  barren,  cold,  flowerless  life  is  our  New  Eng 
land  existence !  Life  is  all,  as  Mantalini  said,  one  (  demd 
horrid  grind.'  '  Nothing  here  but  working  and  going  to 
church,'  said  the  German  emigrants,  —  and  they  were  about 
right.  A  French  traveler,  in  the  year  1837,  says  that 
attending  the  Thursday -even  ing  lectures  and  church  prayer- 
meetings  was  the  only  recreation  of  the  young  people  of 
Boston  ;  and  we  can  remember  the  time  when  this  really  was 
no  exaggeration.  Think  of  that,  with  all  the  seriousness 
of  our  Boston  east  winds  to  give  it  force,  and  fancy  the  pro 
vision  for  amusement  in  our  society  !  The  consequence  is, 
that  boys  who  have  the  longing  for  amusement  strongest 
within  them,  and  plenty  of  combativeness  to  back  it,  are 
the  standing  terror  of  good  society,  and  our  Fourth  of  July 
is  a  day  of  fear  to  all  invalids  and  persons  of  delicate  ner 
vous  organization,  and  of  real,  appreciable  danger  of  life  and 
limb  to  every  one." 

"  Well,  Eobert,"  said  my  wife,  "  though  I  agree  with 


364  THE   CHIMNEY-CORNER 

you  as  to  the  actual  state  of  society  in  this  respect,  I  must 
enter  my  protest  against  your  slur  on  the  memory  of  our 
Pilgrim  fathers." 

"  Yes,"  said  Theophilus  Thoro,  "  the  New  Englanders 
are  the  only  people,  I  believe,  who  take  delight  in  vilifying 
their  ancestry.  Every  young  hopeful  in  our  day  makes  a 
target  of  his  grandfather's  gravestone,  and  fires  away,  with 
great  self-applause.  People  in  general  seem  to  like  to  show 
that  they  are  well-born,  and  come  of  good  stock ;  but  the 
young  New  Englanders,  many  of  them,  appear  to  take 
pleasure  in  insisting  that  they  came  of  a  race  of  narrow- 
minded,  persecuting  bigots. 

"  It  is  true,  that  our  Puritan  fathers  saw  not  everything. 
They  made  a  state  where  there  were  no  amusements,  but 
where  people  could  go  to  bed  and  leave  their  house  doors 
wide  open  all  night,  without  a  shadow  of  fear  or  danger,  as 
was  for  years  the  custom  in  all  our  country  villages.  The 
fact  is,  that  the  simple  early  New  England  life,  before  we  be 
gan  to  import  foreigners,  realized  a  state  of  society  in  whose 
possibility  Europe  would  scarcely  believe.  If  our  fathers 
had  few  amusements,  they  needed  few.  Life  was  too  really 
and  solidly  comfortable  and  happy  to  need  much  amusement. 

"Look  over  the  countries  where  people  are  most  sedu 
lously  amused  by  their  rulers  and  governors.  Are  they  not 
the  countries  where  the  people  are  most  oppressed,  most  un 
happy  in  their  circumstances,  and  therefore  in  greatest  need 
of  amusement  ?  It  is  the  slave  who  dances  and  sings,  and 
why  ?  Because  he  owns  nothing,  and  can  own  nothing, 
and  may  as  well  dance  and  forget  the  fact.  But  give  the 
slave  a  farm  of  his  own,  a  wife  of  his  own,  and  children  of 
his  own,  with  a  schoolhouse  and  a  vote,  and  ten  to  one  he 
dances  no  more.  He  needs  no  amusement,  because  he  is 
happy. 

"  The  legislators  of  Europe  wished  nothing  more  than  to 
bring  up  a  people  who  would  be  content  with  amusements, 


HOW    SHALL   WE    BE    AMUSED  365 

t 
and  not  ask  after  their  rights  or  think  too  closely  how  they 

were  governed.  '  Gild  the  dome  of  the  Invalides,'  was 
Napoleon's  scornful  prescription,  when  he  heard  the  Pari 
sian  population  were  discontented.  They  gilded  it,  and 
the  people  forgot  to  talk  about  anything  else.  They  were 
a  childish  race,  educated  from  the  cradle  on  spectacle  and 
show,  and  by  the  sight  of  their  eyes  could  they  be  gov 
erned.  The  people  of  Boston,  in  1776,  could  not  have 
been  managed  in  this  way,  chiefly  because  they  were  brought 
up  in  the  strict  schools  of  the  fathers." 

"  But  don't  you  think,"  said  Jenny,  "  that  something 
might  be  added  and  amended  in  the  state  of  society  our 
fathers  established  here  in  New  England  ?  Without  be 
coming  frivolous,  there  might  be  more  attention  paid  to 
rational  amusement." 

"  Certainly,"  said  my  wife,  "the  State  and  the  Church 
both  might  take  a  lesson  from  the  providence  of  foreign 
governments,  and  make  liberty,  to  say  the  least,  as  attrac 
tive  as  despotism.  It  is  a  very  unwise  mother  that  does 
not  provide  her  children  with  playthings." 

"  And  yet,"  said  Bob,  "  the  only  thing  that  the  Church 
has  yet  done  is  to  forbid  and  to  frown.  We  have  abun 
dance  of  tracts  against  dancing,  whist-playing,  ninepins, 
billiards,  operas,  theatres,  —  in  short,  anything  that  young 
people  would  be  apt  to  like.  The  General  Assembly  of 
the  Presbyterian  Church  refused  to  testify  against  slavery, 
because  of  political  diffidence,  but  made  up  for  it  by  order 
ing  a  more  stringent  crusade  against  dancing.  The  theatre 
and  opera  grow  up  and  exist  among  us  like  plants  on  the 
windy  side  of  a  hill,  blown  all  awry  by  a  constant  blast  of 
conscientious  rebuke.  There  is  really  no  amusement  young 
people  are  fond  of,  which  they  do  not  pursue,  in  a  sort  of 
defiance  of  the  frown  of  the  peculiarly  religious  world. 
With  all  the  telling  of  what  the  young  shall  not  do,  there 
has  been  very  little  telling  what  they  shall  do. 


36G  THE   CHIMNEY-CORNER 

% 

"  The  whole  department  of  amusements  —  certainly  one 
of  the  most  important  in  education  —  has  been  by  the 
Church  made  a  sort  of  outlaws'  ground,  to  be  taken  posses 
sion  of  and  held  by  all  sorts  of  spiritual  ragamuffins  ;  and 
then  the  faults  and  shortcomings  resulting  from  this  arrange 
ment  have  been  held  up  and  insisted  on  as  reasons  why  no 
Christian  should  ever  venture  into  it. 

"  If  the  Church  would  set  herself  to  amuse  her  young 
folks,  instead  of  discussing  doctrines  and  metaphysical  hair 
splitting,  she  would  prove  herself  a  true  mother,  and  not 
a  hard-visaged  stepdame.  Let  her  keep  this  department, 
so  powerful  and  so  difficult  to  manage,  in  what  are  morally 
the  strongest  hands,  instead  of  giving  it  up  to  the  weakest. 

"  I  think,  if  the  different  churches  of  a  city,  for  example, 
would  rent  a  building  where  there  should  be  a  billiard-table, 
one  or  two  ninepin-alleys,  a  reading-room,  a  garden  and 
grounds  for  ball  playing  or  innocent  lounging,  that  they 
would  do  more  to  keep  their  young  people  from  the  ways  of 
sin  than  a  Sunday-school  could.  Nay,  more :  I  would  go 
further.  I  would  have  a  portion  of  the  building  fitted  up 
with  scenery  and  a  stage,  for  the  getting  up  of  tableaux  or 
dramatic  performances,  and  thus  give  scope  for  the  exercise 
of  that  histrionic  talent  of  which  there  is  so  much  lying 
unemployed  in  society. 

"Young  people  do  not  like  amusements  any  better  for 
the  wickedness  connected  with  them.  The  spectacle  of  a 
sweet  little  child  singing  hymns,  and  repeating  prayers,  of 
a  pious  old  Uncle  Tom  dying  for  his  religion,  has  filled 
theatres  night  after  night,  and  proved  that  there  really  is 
no  need  of  indecent  or  improper  plays  to  draw  full  houses. 

"  The  things  that  draw  young  people  to  places  of  amuse 
ment  are  not  at  first  gross  things.  Take  the  most  notorious 
public  place  in  Paris,  —  the  Jardin  Mabille,  for  instance,  — 
and  the  things  which  give  it  its  first  charm  are  all  innocent 
and  artistic.  Exquisite  beds  of  lilies,  roses,  gillyflowers, 


HOW   SHALL   WE    BE   AMUSED  367 

lighted  with  jets  of  gas  so  artfully  as  to  make  every  flower 
translucent  as  a  gem ;  fountains  where  the  gaslight  streams 
out  from  behind  misty  wreaths  of  falling  water  and  calla- 
blossoms ;  sofas  of  velvet  turf,  canopied  with  fragrant 
honeysuckle  ;  dim  bowers  overarched  with  lilacs  and  roses ; 
a  dancing-ground  under  trees  whose  branches  bend  with  a 
fruitage  of  many-colored  lamps ;  enchanting  music  and 
graceful  motion ;  in  all  these  there  is  not  only  no  sin,  but 
they  are  really  beautiful  and  desirable  ;  and  if  they  were 
only  used  on  the  side  and  in  the  service  of  virtue  and  reli 
gion,  if  they  were  contrived  and  kept  up  by  the  guardians 
and  instructors  of  youth,  instead  of  by  those  whose  interest 
it  is  to  demoralize  and  destroy,  young  people  would  have 
no  temptation  to  stray  into  the  haunts  of  vice. 

"  In  Prussia,  under  the  reign  of  Frederick  William  II., 
when  one  good,  hard-handed  man  governed  the  whole  coun 
try  like  a  strict  schoolmaster,  the  public  amusements  for 
the  people  were  made  such  as  to  present  a  model  for  all 
states.  The  theatres  were  strictly  supervised,  and  actors 
obliged  to  conform  to  the  rules  of  decorum  and  morality. 
The  plays  and  performances  were  under  the  immediate 
supervision  of  men  of  grave  morals,  who  allowed  nothing 
corrupting  to  appear ;  a?nd  the  effect  of  this  administration 
and  restraint  is  to  be  seen  in  Berlin  even  to  this  day.  The 
public  gardens  are  full  of  charming  little  resorts,  where, 
every  afternoon,  for  a  very  moderate  sum,  one  can  have 
either  a  concert  of  good  music,  or  a  very  fair  dramatic  or 
operatic  performance.  Here  whole  families  may  be  seen 
enjoying  together  a  wholesome  and  refreshing  entertainment, 
—  the  mother  and  aunts  with  their  knitting,  the  baby,  the 
children  of  all  ages,  and  the  father,  —  their  faces  radiant 
with  that  mild  German  light  of  contentment  and  good  will 
which  one  feels  to  be  characteristic  of  the  nation.  When  I 
saw  these  things,  and  thought  of  our  own  outcast,  unprovided 
boys  and  young  men,  haunting  the  streets  and  alleys  of 


3G8  THE   CHIMNEY-CORNER 

cities,  in  places  far  from  the  companionship  of  mothers  and 
sisters,  I  felt  as  if  it  would  be  better  for  a  nation  to  be 
brought  up  by  a  good  strict  schoolmaster  king  than  to  try 
to  be  a  republic." 

"  Yes,"  said  I,  "  but  the  difficulty  is  to  get  the  good 
schoolmaster  king.  For  one  good  shepherd,  there  are  twenty 
who  use  the  sheep  only  for  their  flesh  and  their  wool. 
Republics  can  do  all  that  kings  can,  —  witness  our  late  army 
and  sanitary  commission.  Once  fix  the  idea  thoroughly  in 
the  public  mind  that  there  ought  to  be  as  regular  and  care 
ful  provision  for  public  amusement  as  there  is  for  going 
to  church  and  Sunday-school,  and  it  will  be  done.  Central 
Park  in  New  York  is  a  beginning  in  the  right  direction,  and 
Brooklyn  is  following  the  example  of  her  sister  city.  There 
is,  moreover,  an  indication  of  the  proper  spirit  in  the  in 
creased  efforts  that  are  made  to  beautify  Sunday-school 
rooms,  and  make  them  interesting,  and  to  have  Sunday- 
school  fetes  and  picnics,  —  the  most  harmless  and  commend 
able  way  of  celebrating  the  Fourth  of  July.  Why  should 
saloons  and  bar-rooms  be  made  attractive  by  fine  paintings, 
choice  music,  flowers,  and  fountains,  and  Sunday-school 
rooms  be  four  bare  walls  ?  There  are  churches  whose  broad 
aisles  represent  ten  and  twenty  millions  of  dollars,  and 
whose  sons  and  daughters  are  daily  drawn  to  circuses, 
operas,  theatres,  because  they  have  tastes  and  feelings,  in 
themselves  perfectly  laudable  and  innocent,  for  the  gratifi 
cation  of  which  no  provision  is  made  in  any  other  place.'5 

"  I  know  one  church,"  said  Rudolph,  "  whose  Sunday- 
school  room  is  as  beautifully  adorned  as  any  haunt  of  sin. 
There  is  a  fountain  in  the  centre,  which  plays  into  a  basin 
surrounded  with  shells  and  flowers ;  it  has  a  small  organ  to 
lead  the  children's  voices,  and  the  walls  are  hung  with  oil 
paintings  and  engravings  from  the  best  masters.  The  festi 
vals  of  the  Sabbath  school,  which  are  from  time  to  time 
held  in  this  place,  educate  the  taste  of  the  children,  as  well 


HOW   SHALL   WE   BE   AMUSED  3G9 

as  amuse  them ;  and,  above  all,  they  have  through  life  the 
advantage  of  associating  with  their  early  religious  education 
all  those  ideas  of  taste,  elegance,  and  artistic  culture  which 
too  often  come  through  polluted  channels. 

"  When  the  amusement  of  the  young  shall  become  the 
care  of  the  experienced  and  the  wise,  and  the  floods  of 
wealth  that  are  now  rolling  over  and  over,  in  silent  invest 
ments,  shall  be  put  into  the  form  of  innocent  and  refined 
pleasures  for  the  children  and  youth  of  the  state,  our  na 
tional  festivals  may  become  days  to  be  desired,  and  not 
dreaded. 

"  On  the  Fourth  of  July,  our  city  fathers  do  in  a  cer 
tain  dim  wise  perceive  that  the  public  owes  some  attempt 
at  amusement  to  its  children,  and  they  vote  large  sums, 
principally  expended  in  bell-ringing,  cannon,  and  fireworks. 
The  sidewalks  are  witness  to  the  number  who  fall  victims 
to  the  temptations  held  out  by  grog-shops  and  saloons  ;  and 
the  papers,  for  weeks  after,  are  crowded  with  accounts  of 
accidents.  Now,  a  yearly  sum  expended  to  keep  up,  and 
keep  pure,  places  of  amusement  which  hold  out  no  tempta 
tion  to  vice,  but  which  excel  all  vicious  places  in  real  beauty 
and  attractiveness,  would  greatly  lessen  the  sum  needed  to 
be  expended  on  any  one  particular  day,  and  would  refine 
and  prepare  our  people  to  keep  holidays  and  festivals  ap 
propriately." 

"  For  my  part,"  said  Mrs.  Crowfield,  "  I  am  grieved  at 
the  opprobrium  which  falls  on  the  race  of  boys.  Why 
should  the  most  critical  era  in  the  life  of  those  who  are  to 
be  men,  and  to  govern  society,  be  passed  in  a  sort  of  out 
lawry,  —  a  rude  warfare  with  all  existing  institutions  ? 
The  years  between  ten  and  twenty  are  full  of  the  nervous 
excitability  which  marks  the  growth  and  maturing  of  the 
manly  nature.  The  boy  feels  wild  impulses,  which  ought 
to  be  vented  in  legitimate  and  healthful  exercise.  He 
wants  to  run,  shout,  wrestle,  ride,  row,  skate  ;  and  all  these 


370  THE    CHIMNEY-CORNER 

together  are  often  not  sufficient  to  relieve  the  need  he  feels 
of  throwing  off  the  excitability  that  burns  within. 

"  For  the  wants  of  this  period  what  safe  provision  is 
made  by  the  church,  or  by  the  state,  or  any  of  the  boy's 
lawful  educators  ?  In  all  the  Prussian  schools  amusements 
are  as  much  a  part  of  the  regular  school  system  as  grammar 
or  geography.  The  teacher  is  with  the  boys  on  the  play 
ground,  and  plays  as  heartily  as  any  of  them.  The  boy 
has  his  physical  wants  anticipated.  He  is  not  left  to  fight 
his  way,  blindly  stumbling  against  society,  but  goes  forward 
in  a  safe  path,  which  his  elders  and  betters  have  marked 
out  for  him. 

"  In  our  country,  the  boy's  career  is  often  a  series  of 
skirmishes  with  society.  He  wants  to  skate,  and  contrives  in 
geniously  to  dam  the  course  of  a  brook  and  flood  a  meadow 
which  makes  a  splendid  skating-ground.  Great  is  the  joy 
for  a  season,  and  great  the  skating.  But  the  water  floods 
the  neighboring  cellars.  The  boys  are  cursed  through  all 
the  moods  and  tenses,  —  boys  are  such  a  plague !  The 
dam  is  torn  down  with  emphasis  and  execration.  The 
boys,  however,  lie  in  wait  some  cold  night,  between  twelve 
and  one,  and  build  it  up  again  ;  and  thus  goes  on  the  bat 
tle.  The  boys  care  not  whose  cellar  they  flood,  because 
nobody  cares  for  their  amusement.  They  understand  them 
selves  to  be  outlaws,  and  take  an  outlaw's  advantage. 

"  Again,  the  boys  have  their  sleds ;  and  sliding  down 
hill  is  splendid  fun.  But  they  trip  up  some  grave  citizen, 
who  sprains  his  shoulder.  What  is  the  result  ?  Not  the 
provision  of  a  safe,  good  place,  where  boys  may  slide  down 
hill  without  danger  to  any  one,  but  an  edict  forbidding  all 
sliding,  under  penalty  of  fine. 

"  Boys  want  to  swim  :  it  is  best  they  should  swim  ;  and 
if  city  fathers,  foreseeing  and  caring  for  this  want,  should 
think  it  worth  while  to  mark  off  some  good  place,  and  have 
it  under  such  police  surveillance  as  to  enforce  decency  of 


HOW   SHALL   WE   BE   AMUSED  371 

language  and  demeanor,  they  would  prevent  a  great  deal 
that  now  is  disagreeable  in  the  unguided  efforts  of  boys  to 
enjoy  this  luxury. 

"  It  would  be  cheaper  in  the  end,  even  if  one  had  to 
build  sliding-piles,  as  they  do  in  Russia,  or  to  build  skating- 
rinks,  as  they  do  in  Montreal,  —  it  would  be  cheaper  for 
every  city,  town,  and  village  to  provide  legitimate  amuse 
ment  for  boys,  under  proper  superintendence,  than  to  leave 
them,  as  they  are  now  left,  to  fight  their  way  against  so 
ciety. 

"In  the  boys'  academies  of  our  country,  what  provision 
is  made  for  amusement  ?  There  are  stringent  rules,  and 
any  number  of  them,  to  prevent  boys  making  any  noise 
that  may  disturb  the  neighbors ;  and  generally  the  teacher 
thinks  that,  if  he  keeps  the  boys  still,  and  sees  that  they 
get  their  lessons,  his  duty  is  done.  But  a  hundred  boys 
ought  not  to  be  kept  still.  There  ought  to  be  noise  and 
motion  among  them,  in  order  that  they  may  healthily  sur 
vive  the  great  changes  which  nature  is  working  within 
them.  If  they  become  silent,  averse  to  movement,  fond  of 
indoor  lounging  and  warm  rooms,  they  are  going  in  far 
worse  ways  than  any  amount  of  outward  lawlessness  could 
bring  them  to. 

"  Smoking  and  yellow-covered  novels  are  worse  than 
any  amount  of  hullabaloo  ;  and  the  quietest  boy  is  often  a 
poor,  ignorant  victim,  whose  life  is  being  drained  out  of  him 
before  it  is  well  begun.  If  mothers  could  only  see  the 
series  of  books  that  are  sold  behind  counters  to  boarding- 
school  boys,  whom  nobody  warns  and  nobody  cares  for,  — 
if  they  could  see  the  poison,  going  from  pillow  to  pillow,  in 
books  pretending  to  make  clear  the  great,  sacred  mysteries 
of  our  nature,  but  trailing  them  over  with  the  filth  of  utter 
corruption  !  These  horrible  works  are  the  inward  and  secret 
channel  of  hell,  into  which  a  boy  is  thrust  by  the  pressure 
of  strict  outward  rules,  forbidding  that  physical  and  out-of- 


372  THE    CHIMNEY-CORNER 

door  exercise  and  motion  to  which  he  ought  rather  to  be 
encouraged,  and  even  driven. 

"It  is  melancholy  to  see  that,  while  parents,  teachers, 
and  churches  make  no  provision  for  boys  in  the  way  of 
amusement,  the  world,  the  flesh,  and  the  devil  are  inces 
santly  busy  and  active  in  giving  it  to  them.  There  are 
ninepin-alleys,  with  cigars  and  a  bar.  There  are  billiard- 
saloons,  with  a  bar,  and,  alas  !  with  the  occasional  company 
of  girls  who  are  still  beautiful,  but  who  have  lost  the  inno 
cence  of  womanhood,  while  yet  retaining  many  of  its  charms. 
There  are  theatres,  with  a  bar,  and  with  the  society  of  lost 
women.  The  boy  comes  to  one  and  all  of  these  places, 
seeking  only  what  is  natural  and  proper  he  should  have,  — 
what  should  be  given  him  under  the  eye  and  by  the  care  of 
the  Church,  the  school.  He  comes  for  exercise  and  amuse 
ment,  —  he  gets  these,  and  a  ticket  to  destruction  besides,  — 
and  whose  fault  is  it  ?  " 

"  These  are  the  aspects  of  public  life,"  said  I,  "  which 
make  me  feel  that  we  never  shall  have  a  perfect  state  till 
women  vote  and  bear  rule  equally  with  men.  State  housekeep 
ing  has  been,  hitherto,  like  what  any  housekeeping  would 
be,  conducted  by  the  voice  and  knowledge  of  man  alone. 

"  If  women  had  an  equal  voice  in  the  management  of  our 
public  money,  I  have  faith  to  believe  that  thousands  which 
are  now  wasted  in  mere  political  charlatanism  would  go  to 
provide  for  the  rearing  of  the  children  of  the  state,  male  and 
female.  My  wife  has  spoken  for  the  boys  ;  I  speak  for  the 
girls  also.  What  is  provided  for  their  physical  development 
and  amusement  ?  Hot,  gas-lighted  theatric  and  operatic 
performances,  beginning  at  eight,  and  ending  at  midnight ; 
hot,  crowded  parties  and  balls ;  dancing  with  dresses  tightly 
laced  over  the  laboring  lungs,  —  these  are  almost  the  whole 
story.  I  bless  the  advent  of  croquet  and  skating.  And 
yet  the  latter  exercise,  pursued  as  it  generally  is,  is  a  most 
terrible  exposure.  There  is  no  kindly  parental  provision 


HOW   SHALL   WE    BE   AMUSED  373 

for  the  poor,  thoughtless,  delicate  young  creature,  —  not 
even  the  shelter  of  a  dressing-room  with  a  fire,  at  which  she 
may  warm  her  numb  fingers  and  put  on  her  skates  when  she 
arrives  on  the  ground,  and  to  which  she  may  retreat  in  inter 
vals  of  fatigue  ;  so  she  catches  cold,  and  perhaps  sows  the 
seed  which  with  air-tight  stoves  and  other  appliances  of  hot 
house  culture  may  ripen  into  consumption. 

"What  provision  is  there  for  the  amusement  of  all  the 
shop  girls,  seamstresses,  factory  girls,  that  crowd  our  cities  ? 
What  for  the  thousands  of  young  clerks  and  operatives  ? 
Not  long  since,  in  a  respectable  old  town  in  New  England, 
the  body  of  a  beautiful  girl  was  drawn  from  the  river  in 
which  she  had  drowned  herself,  —  a  young  girl  only  fifteen, 
who  came  to  the  city,  far  from  home  and  parents,  and  fell  a 
victim  to  the  temptation  which  brought  her  to  shame  and  des 
peration.  Many  thus  fall  every  year  who  are  never  counted. 
They  fall  into  the  ranks  of  those  whom  the  world  abandons 
as  irreclaimable. 

"  Let  those  who  have  homes  and  every  appliance  to  make 
life  pass 'agreeably,  and  who  yet  yawn  over  an  unoccupied 
evening,  fancy  a  lively  young  girl  all  day  cooped  up  at  sewing 
in  a  close,  ill-ventilated  room.  Evening  comes,  and  she  has 
three  times  the  desire  for  amusement  and  three  times  the 
need  of  it  that  her  fashionable  sister  has.  And  where  can 
she  go  ?  To  the  theatre,  perhaps,  with  some  young  man  as 
thoughtless  as  herself,  and  more  depraved  ;*  then  to  the  bar 
for  a  glass  of  wine,  and  another;  and  then,  with  a  head 
swimming  and  turning,  who  shall  say  where  else  she  may 
be  led  ?  Past  midnight  and  no  one  to  look  after  her,  —  and 
one  night  ruins  her  utterly  and  for  life,  and  she  as  yet  only 
a  child  ! 

"  John  Newton  had  a  very  wise  saying :  '  Here  is  a  man 
trying  to  fill  a  bushel  with  chaff.  Now  if  I  fill  it  with 
wheat  first,  it  is  better  than  to  fight  him.'  This  apothegm 
contains  in  it  the  whole  of  what  I  would  say  on  the  subject 
of  amusements." 


IX 

DRESS,    OR    WHO    MAKES    THE    FASHIONS 

THE  door  of  my  study  being  open,  I  heard  in  the  dis 
tant  parlor  a  sort  of  flutter  of  silken  wings,  and  chatter 
of  bird-like  voices,  which  told  me  that  a  covey  of  Jenny's 
pretty  young  street  birds  had  just  alighted  there.  I  could 
not  forbear  a  peep  at  the  rosy  faces  that  glanced  out  under 
pheasants'  tails,  doves'  wings,  and  nodding  humming-birds, 
and  made  one  or  two  errands  in  that  direction  only  that  I 
might  gratify  my  eyes  with  a  look  at  them. 

Your  nice  young  girl,  of  good  family  and  good  breeding, 
is  always  a  pretty  object,  and,  for  my  part,  I  regularly  lose 
my  heart  (in  a  sort  of  figurative  way)  to  every  fresh,  charm 
ing  creature  that  trips  across  my  path.  All  their  mysteri 
ous  rattletraps  and  whirligigs,  —  their  curls  and  networks 
and  crimples  and  rim  pies  and  crisping-pins,  —  their  little 
absurdities,  if  you  will,  —  have  to  me  a  sort  of  charm,  like 
the  tricks  and  stammerings  of  a  curly-headed  child.  I  should 
have  made  a  very  poor  censor  if  I  had  been  put  in  Cato's 
place  :  the  witches  would  have  thrown  all  my  wisdom  into 
some  private  chip-basket  of  their  own,  and  walked  off  with 
it  in  triumph.  Never  a  girl  bows  to  me  that  I  do  not  see 
in  her  eye  a  twinkle  of  confidence  that  she  could,  if  she 
chose,  make  an  old  fool  of  me.  I  surrender  at  discretion  on 
first  sight. 

Jenny's  friends  are  nice  girls,  —  the  flowers  of  good, 
staid,  sensible  families,  —  not  heathen  blossoms  nursed  in 
the  hot-bed  heat  of  wild,  high-flying,  fashionable  society. 
They  have  been  duly  and  truly  taught  and  brought  up,  by 


DRESS,   OR  WHO  MAKES   THE  FASHIONS  375 

good  mothers  and  painstaking  aunties,  to  understand  in  their 
infancy  that  handsome  is  that  handsome  does  ;  that  little 
girls  must  not  be  vain  of  their  pretty  red  shoes  and  nice 
curls,  and  must  remember  that  it  is  better  to  be  good  than 
to  be  handsome  j  with  all  other  wholesome  truisms  of  the 
kind.  They  have  been  to  school,  and  had  their  minds 
improved  in  all  modern  ways,  —  have  calculated  eclipses, 
and  read  Virgil,  Schiller,  and  La  Fontaine,  and  understand 
all  about  the  geological  strata,  and  the  different  systems  of 
metaphysics,  —  so  that  a  person  reading  the  list  of  their 
acquirements  might  be  a  little  appalled  at  the  prospect  of 
entering  into  conversation  with  them.  For  all  these  reasons 
I  listened  quite  indulgently  to  the  animated  conversation 
that  was  going  on  about  —  Well ! 

What  do  girls  generally  talk  about,  when  a  knot  of  them 
get  together  ?  Not,  I  believe,  about  the  sources  of  the 
Nile,  or  the  precession  of  the  equinoxes,  or  the  nature  of 
the  human  understanding,  or  Dante,  or  Shakespeare,  or  Mil 
ton,  although  they  have  learned  all  about  them  in  school ; 
but  upon  a  theme  much  nearer  and  dearer,  —  the  one  all- 
pervading  feminine  topic  ever  since  Eve  started  the  first 
toilet  of  fig-leaves ;  and  as  I  caught  now  and  then  a  phrase 
of  their  chatter,  I  jotted  it  down  in  pure  amusement,  giving 
to  each  charming  speaker  the  name  of  the  bird  under  whose 
colors  she  was  sailing. 

"  For  my  part,"  said  little  Humming-Bird,  "  I  'm  quite 
worn  out  with  sewing  ;  the  fashions  are  all  so  different 
from  what  they  were  last  year,  that  everything  has  to  be 
made  over." 

"  Is  n't  it  dreadful  !  "  said  Pheasant.  "  There  's  my  new 
mauve  silk  dress  !  it  was  a  very  expensive  silk,  and  I 
have  n't  worn  it  more  than  three  or  four  times,  and  it  really 
looks  quite  dowdy  ;  and  I  can't  get  Patterson  to  do  it  over 
for  me  for  this  party.  Well,  really,  I  shall  have  to  give  up 
company  because  I  have  nothing  to  wear." 


376  THE    CHIMNEY-CORNER 

"  Who  does  set  the  fashions,  I  wonder,"  said  Humming- 
Bird  ;  "  they  seem  nowadays  to  whirl  faster  and  faster,  till 
really  they  don't  leave  one  time  for  anything." 

"  Yes,"  said  Dove,  "  I  have  n't  a  moment  for  reading,  or 
drawing,  or  keeping  up  my  music.  The  fact  is,  nowadays, 
to  keep  one's  self  properly  dressed  is  all  one  can  do.  If  I 
were  grande  dame  now,  and  had  only  to  send  an  order  to 
my  milliner  and  dressmaker,  I  might  be  beautifully  dressed 
all  the  time  without  giving  much  thought  to  it  myself ;  and 
that  is  what  I  should  like.  But  this  constant  planning 
about  one's  toilet,  changing  your  buttons  and  your  fringes 
and  your  bonnet-trimmings  and  your  hats  every  other  day, 
and  then  being  behindhand  !  It  is  really  too  fatiguing." 

"  Well,"  said  Jenny,  "  I  never  pretend  to  keep  up.  I 
never  expect  to  be  in  the  front  rank  of  fashion,  but  no  girl 
wants  to  be  behind  every  one  ;  nobody  wants  to  have  peo 
ple  say,  (  Do  see  what  an  old-times,  rubbishy  looking  crea 
ture  that  is.'  And  now,  with  my  small  means  and  my  con 
science  (for  I  have  a  conscience  in  this  matter,  and  don't 
wish  to  spend  any  more  time  and  money  than  is  needed  to 
keep  one's  self  fresh  and  tasteful),  I  find  my  dress  quite  a 
fatiguing  care." 

"  Well,  now,  girls,"  said  Humming-Bird,  "  do  you  really 
know,  I  have  sometimes  thought  I  should  like  to  be  a  nun, 
just  to  get  rid  of  all  this  labor.  If  I  once  gave  up  dress 
altogether,  and  knew  I  was  to  have  nothing  but  one  plain 
robe  tied  round  my  waist  with  a  cord,  it  does  seem  to  me 
as  if  it  would  be  a  perfect  repose,  —  only  one  is  a  Protes 
tant,  you  know." 

Now,  as  Humming-Bird  was  the  most  notoriously  dressy 
individual  in  the  little  circle,  this  suggestion  was  received 
with  quite  a  laugh.  But  Dove  took  it  up. 

"  Well,  really,"  she  said,  "  when  dear  Mr.  S preaches 

those  saintly  sermons  to  us  about  our  baptismal  vows,  and 
the  nobleness  of  an  unworldly  life,  and  calls  on  us  to  live 


DRESS,   OR   WHO   MAKES   THE   FASHIONS  377 

for  something  purer  and  higher  than  we  are  living  for,  I 
confess  that  sometimes  all  my  life  seems  to  me  a  mere  sham, 
—  that  I  am  going  to  church,  and  saying  solemn  words,  and 
being  wrought  up  by  solemn  music,  and  uttering  most  solemn 
vows  and  prayers,  all  to  no  purpose  ;  and  then  I  come  away 
and  look  at  my  life,  all  resolving  itself  into  a  fritter  about 
dress,  and  sewing-silk,  cord,  braid,  and  buttons,  —  the  next 
fashion  of  bonnets,  —  how  to  make  my  old  dresses  answer 
instead  of  new,  —  how  to  keep  the  air  of  the  world,  while 
in  my  heart  I  am  cherishing  something  higher  and  better. 
If  there  ?s  anything  I  detest  it  is  hypocrisy  ;  and  sometimes 
the  life  I  lead  looks  like  it.  But  how  to  get  out  of  it  ?  — 
what  to  do  ?  — 

"  I  'm  sure,"  said  Humming-Bird,  "  that  taking  care  of 
my  clothes  and  going  into  company  is,  frankly,  all  I  do. 
If  I  go  to  parties,  as  other  girls  do,  and  make  calls,  and 
keep  dressed,  —  you  know  papa  is  not  rich,  and  one  must 
do  these  things  economically,  —  it  really  does  take  all  the 
time  I  have.  When  I  was  confirmed  the  Bishop  talked  to 
us  so  sweetly,  and  I  really  meant  sincerely  to  be  a  good 
girl,  —  to  be  as  good  as  I  knew  how  ;  but  now,  when  they 
talk  about  fighting  the  good  fight  and  running  the  Christian 
race,  I  feel  very  mean  and  little,  for  I  am  quite  sure  this 
is  n't  doing  it.  But  what  is,  —  and  who  is  ?  " 

"  Aunt  Betsey  Titcomb  is  doing  it,  I  suppose,"  said 
Pheasant. 

"  Aunt  Betsey  !  "  said  Humming-Bird,  "  well,  she  is. 
She  spends  all  her  money  in  doing  good.  She  goes  round 
visiting  the  poor  all  the  time.  She  is  a  perfect  saint ;  — 
but  oh  girls,  how  she  looks  !  Well,  now,  I  confess,  when 
I  think  I  must  look  like  Aunt  Betsey,  my  courage  gives 
out.  Is  it  necessary  to  go  without  hoops,  and  look  like  a 
dipped  candle,  in  order  to  be  unworldly  ?  Must  one  wear 
such  a  fright  of  a  bonnet  ?  " 

"  No,"  said  Jenny,  "  I  think  not.     I  think  Miss  Betsey 


378  THE   CHIMNEY-CORNER 

Titcomb,  good  as  she  is,  injures  the  cause  of  goodness  by 
making  it  outwardly  repulsive.  I  really  think,  if  she  would 
take  some  pains  with  her  dress,  and  spend  upon  her  own 
wardrobe  a  little  of  the  money  she  gives  away,  that  she 
might  have  influence  in  leading  others  to  higher  aims  ;  now 
all  her  influence  is  against  it.  Her  outre  and  repulsive  ex 
terior  arrays  our  natural  and  innocent  feelings  against  good 
ness  ;  for  surely  it  is  natural  and  innocent  to  wish  to  look 
well,  and  I  am  really  afraid  a  great  many  of  us  are  more 
afraid  of  being  thought  ridiculous  than  of  being  wicked." 

"  And  after  all,"  said  Pheasant,  "  you  know  Mr.  St. 
Clair  says,  '  Dress  is  one  of  the  fine  arts,'  and  if  it  is,  why 
of  course  we  ought  to  cultivate  it.  Certainly,  well-dressed 
men  and  women  are  more  agreeable  objects  than  rude  and 
unkempt  ones.  There  must  be  somebody  whose  mission  it 
is  to  preside  over  the  agreeable  arts  of  life ;  and  I  suppose 
it  falls  to  '  us  girls.'  That 's  the  way  I  comfort  myself,  at 
all  events.  Then  I  must  confess  that  I  do  like  dress  ;  I'm 
not  cultivated  enough  to  be  a  painter  or  a  poet,  and  I  have 
all  my  artistic  nature,  such  as  it  is,  in  dress.  I  love  har 
monies  of  color,  exact  shades  and  matches  j  I  love  to  see  a 
uniform  idea  carried  all  through  a  woman's  toilet,  —  her 
dress,  her  bonnet,  her  gloves,  her  shoes,  her  pocket-hand 
kerchief  and  cuffs,  her  very  parasol,  all  in  correspondence." 

"  But,  my  dear,"  said  Jenny,  "  anything  of  this  kind 
must  take  a  fortune  !  " 

"  And  if  I  had  a  fortune,  I  'm  pretty  sure  I  should  spend 
a  good  deal  of  it  in  this  way,"  said  Pheasant.  "  I  can  ima 
gine  such  completeness  of  toilet  as  I  have  never  seen.  How 
I  would  like  the  means  to  show  what  I  could  do  !  My  life, 
now,  is  perpetual  disquiet.  I  always  feel  shabby.  My 
things  must  all  be  bought  at  haphazard,  as  they  can  be  got 
out  of  my  poor  little  allowance,  —  and  things  are  getting 
so  horridly  dear !  Only  think  of  it,  girls !  gloves  at  two 
and  a  quarter !  and  boots  at  seven,  eight,  and  ten  dollars ! 


DRESS,   OR   WHO   MAKES   THE   FASHIONS  379 

and  then,  as  you  say,  the  fashions  changing  so  !  Why,  I 
bought  a  sack  last  fall  and  gave  forty  dollars  for  it,  and  this 
winter  I  'm  wearing  it,  to  be  sure,  but  it  has  no  style  at 
all,  —  looks  quite  antiquated  !  " 

"  Now  I  say,"  said  Jenny,  "  that  you  are  really  morbid 
on  the  subject  of  dress ;  you  are  fastidious  and  particular 
and  exacting  in  your  ideas  in  a  way  that  really  ought  to  be 
put  down.  There  is  not  a  girl  of  our  set  that  dresses  as 
nicely  as  you  do,  except  Emma  Seyton,  and  her  father,  you 
know,  has  no  end  of  income.7' 

"  Nonsense,  Jenny,'7  said  Pheasant.  "  I  think  I  really 
look  like  a  beggar ;  but  then,  I  bear  it  as  well  as  I  can, 
because,  you  see,  I  know  papa  does  all  for  us  he  can,  and 
I  won't  be  extravagant.  But  I  do  think,  as  Humming-Bird 
says,  that  it  would  be  a  great  relief  to  give  it  up  altogether 
and  retire  from  the  world  ;  or,  as  Cousin  John  says,  climb 
a  tree  and  pull  it  up  after  you,  and  so  be  in  peace." 

"Well,"  said  Jenny,  "all  this  seems  to  have  come  on 
since  the  war.  It  seems  to  me  that  not  only  has  everything 
doubled  in  price,  but  all  the  habits  of  the  world  seem  to 
require  that  you  shall  have  double  the  quantity  of  every 
thing.  Two  or  three  years  ago  a  good  balmoral  skirt  was 
a  fixed  fact ;  it  was  a  convenient  thing  for  sloppy,  unpleas 
ant  weather.  But  now,  dear  me  !  there  is  no  end  to  them. 
They  cost  fifteen  and  twenty  dollars  ;  and  girls  that  I  know 
have  one  or  two  every  season,  besides  all  sorts  of  quilled 
and  embroidered  and  ruffled  and  tucked  and  flounced  ones. 
Then,  in  dressing  one's  hair,  what  a  perfect  overflow  there 
is  of  all  manner  of  waterfalls,  and  braids,  and  rats,  and  mice, 
and  curls,  and  combs  ;  when  three  or  four  years  ago  we 
combed  our  own  hair  innocently  behind  our  ears,  and  put 
flowers  in  it,  and  thought  we  looked  nicely  at  our  evening 
parties  !  I  don't  believe  we  look  any  better  now,  when  we 
are  dressed,  than  we  did  then,  —  so  what 's  the  use  ?  " 

"  Well,  did  you  ever  see  such  a  tyranny  as  this  of  fash- 


380  THE   CHIMNEY-CORNER 

ion  ?  "  said  Humming-Bird.  "  We  know  it's  silly,  but  we 
all  bow  down  before  it ;  we  are  afraid  of  our  lives  before 
it ;  and  who  makes  all  this  and  sets  it  going  ?  The  Paris 
milliners,  the  Empress,  or  who  ?  " 

"The  question  where  fashions  come  from  is  like  the 
question  where  pins  go  to,"  said  Pheasant.  "  Think  of  the 
thousands  and  millions  of  pins  that  are  being  used  every 
year,  and  not  one  of  them  worn  out.  Where  do  they  all 
go  to  ?  One  would  expect  to  find  a  pin  mine  somewhere." 

"  Victor  Hugo  says  they  go  into  the  sewers  in  Paris," 
said  Jenny. 

"  And  the  fashions  come  from  a  source  about  as  pure," 
said  I,  from  the  next  room. 

"  Bless  me,  Jenny,  do  tell  us  if  your  father  has  been 
listening  to  us  all  this  time  !  "  was  the  next  exclamation ; 
and  forthwith  there  was  a  whir  and  rustle  of  the  silken 
wings,  as  the  whole  troop  fluttered  into  my  study. 

"  Now,  Mr.  Crowfield,  you  are  too  bad  !  "  said  Humming- 
Bird,  as  she  perched  upon  a  corner  of  my  study-table,  and 
put  her  little  feet  upon  an  old  "  Froissart "  which  filled 
the  armchair. 

"  To  be  listening  to  our  nonsense  !  "  said  Pheasant. 

"  Lying  in  wait  for  us  !  "  said  Dove. 

"  Well,  now,  you  have  brought  us  all  down  on  you," 
said  Humming-Bird,  "  and  you  won't  find  it  so  easy  to  be 
rid  of  us.  You  will  have  to  answer  all  our  questions." 

"  My  dears,  I  am  at  your  service,  as  far  as  mortal  man 
may  be,"  said  I. 

"  Well,  then,"  said  Humming-Bird,  "  tell  us  all  about 
everything,  —  how  things  come  to  be  as  they  are.  Who 
makes  the  fashions  ?  " 

"  I  believe  it  is  universally  admitted  that,  in  the  matter 
of  feminine  toilet,  France  rules  the  world,"  said  I. 

"  But  who  rules  France  ?  "  said  Pheasant.  "  Who  de 
cides  what  the  fashions  shall  be  there  ?  " 


DRESS,    OR   WHO    MAKES    THE   FASHIONS  381 

"It  is  the  great  misfortune  of  the  civilized  world,  at  the 
present  hour/'  said  I,  "  that  the  state  of  morals  in  France 
is  apparently  at  the  very  lowest  ebb,  and  consequently  the 
leadership  of  fashion  is  entirely  in  the  hands  of  a  class  of 
women  who  could  not  be  admitted  into  good  society,  in  any 
country.  Women  who  can  never  have  the  name  of  wife,  — 
who  know  none  of  the  ties  of  family,  —  these  are  the  dicta 
tors  whose  dress  and  equipage  and  appointments  give  the 
law,  first  to  France,  and  through  France  to  the  civilized 
world.  Such  was  the  confession  of  Monsieur  Dupin,  made 
in  a  late  speech  before  the  French  Senate,  and  acknow 
ledged,  with  murmurs  of  assent  on  all  sides,  to  be  the  truth. 
This  is  the  reason  why  the  fashions  have  such  an  utter 
disregard  of  all  those  laws  of  prudence  and  economy  which 
regulate  the  expenditures  of  families.  They  are  made  by 
women  whose  sole  and  only  hold  on  life  is  personal  attrac 
tiveness,  and  with  whom  to  keep  this  up,  at  any  cost,  is  a 
desperate  necessity.  No  moral  quality,  no  association  of 
purity,  truth,  modesty,  self-denial,  or  family  love,  comes  in 
to  hallow  the  atmosphere  about  them,  and  create  a  sphere  of 
loveliness  which  brightens  as  mere  physical  beauty  fades. 
The  ravages  of  time  and  dissipation  must  be  made  up  by  an 
unceasing  study  of  the  arts  of  the  toilet.  Artists  of  all 
sorts,  moving  in  their  train,  rack  all  the  stores  of  ancient 
and  modern  art  for  the  picturesque,  the  dazzling,  the  gro 
tesque  ;  and  so,  lest  these  Circes  of  society  should  carry  all 
before  them,  and  enchant  every  husband,  brother,  and  lover, 
the  staid  and  lawful  Penelopes  leave  the  hearth  and  home 
to  follow  in  their  triumphal  march  and  imitate  their  arts. 
Thus  it  goes  in  France  ;  and  in  England,  virtuous  and  do 
mestic  princesses  and  peeresses  must  take  obediently  what 
has  been  decreed  by  their  rulers  in  the  demi-monde  of 
France  ;  and  we  in  America  have  leaders  of  fashion,  who 
make  it  their  pride  and  glory  to  turn  New  York  into  Paris, 
and  to  keep  even  step  with  everything  that  is  going  on 


382  THE   CHIMNEY-CORNER 

there.  So  the  whole  world  of  womankind  is  marching 
under  the  command  of  these  leaders.  The  love  of  dress 
and  glitter  and  fashion  is  getting  to  be  a  morbid,  unhealthy 
epidemic,  which  really  eats  away  the  nobleness  and  purity 
of  women. 

"  In  France,  as  Monsieur  Dupin,  Edmond  About,  and 
Michelet  tell  us,  the  extravagant  demands  of  love  for  dress 
lead  women  to  contract  debts  unknown  to  their  husbands, 
and  sign  obligations  which  are  paid  by  the  sacrifice  of 
honor,  and  thus  the  purity  of  the  family  is  continually 
undermined.  In  England  there  is  a  voice  of  complaint, 
sounding  from  the  leading  periodicals,  that  the  extravagant 
demands  of  female  fashion  are  bringing  distress  into  fami 
lies,  and  making  marriages  impossible  ;  and  something  of 
the  same  sort  seems  to  have  begun  here.  We  are  across 
the  Atlantic,  to  be  sure  ;  but  we  feel  the  swirl  and  drift 
of  the  great  whirlpool ;  only,  fortunately,  we  are  far  enough 
off  to  be  able  to  see  whither  things  are  tending,  and  to  stop 
ourselves  if  we  will. 

"We  have  just  come  through  a  great  struggle,  in  which 
our  women  have  borne  an  heroic  part,  —  have  shown  them 
selves  capable  of  any  kind  of  endurance  and  self-sacrifice  ; 
and  now  we  are  in  that  reconstructive  state  which  makes  it 
of  the  greatest  consequence  to  ourselves  and  the  world  that 
we  understand  our  own  institutions  and  position,  and  learn 
that,  instead  of  following  the  corrupt  and  worn-out  ways  of 
the  Old  World,  we  are  called  on  to  set  the  example  of  a 
new  state  of  society,  —  noble,  simple,  pure,  and  religious ; 
and  women  can  do  more  towards  this  even  than  men,  for 
women  are  the  real  architects  of  society. 

"  Viewed  in  this  light,  even  the  small,  frittering  cares  of 
women's  life  —  the  attention  to  buttons,  trimmings,  thread, 
and  sewing-silk  —  may  be  an  expression  of  their  patriotism 
and  their  religion.  A  noble-hearted  woman  puts  a  noble 
meaning  into  even  the  commonplace  details  of  life.  The 


DRESS,   OR   WHO   MAKES    THE   FASHIONS  383 

women  of  America  can,  if  they  choose,  hold  back  their 
country  from  following  in  the  wake  of  old,  corrupt,  worn- 
out,  effeminate  European  society,  and  make  America  the 
leader  of  the  world  in  all  that  is  good." 

"  I  'in  sure,"  said  Humming-Bird,  "  we  all  would  like  to 
be  noble  and  heroic.  During  the  war,  I  did  so  long  to  be 
a  man  !  I  felt  so  poor  and  insignificant  because  I  was  no 
thing  but  a  girl !  " 

"  Ah,  well,"  said  Pheasant,  "  but  then  one  wants  to  do 
something  worth  doing,  if  one  is  going  to  do  anything. 
One  would  like  to  be  grand  and  heroic,  if  one  could  ;  but 
if  not,  why  try  at  all  ?  One  wants  to  be  very  something, 
very  great,  very  heroic  ;  or  if  not  that,  then  at  least  very 
stylish  and  very  fashionable.  It  is  this  everlasting  medi 
ocrity  that  bores  me." 

"  Then,  I  suppose,  you  agree  with  the  man  we  read  of, 
who  buried  his  one  talent  in  the  earth,  as  hardly  worth 
caring  for." 

"  To  say  the  truth,  I  always  had  something  of  a  sym 
pathy  for  that  man,"  said  Pheasant.  "  I  can't  enjoy  good 
ness  and  heroism  in  homoeopathic  doses.  I  want  some 
thing  appreciable.  What  I  can  do,  being  a  woman,  is  a 
very  different  thing  from  what  I  should  try  to  do  if  I  were 
a  man,  and  had  a  man's  chances :  it  is  so  much  less  —  so 
poor  —  that  it  is  scarcely  worth  trying  for." 

"You  remember,"  said  I,  "the  apothegm  of  one  of  the 
old  divines,  that  if  two  angels  were  sent  down  from  heaven, 
the  one  to  govern  a  kingdom,  and  the  other  to  sweep  a 
street,  they  would  not  feel  any  disposition  to  change 
works." 

"  Well,  that  just  shows  that  they  are  angels,  and  not 
mortals,"  said  Pheasant ;  "  but  we  poor  human  beings  see 
things  differently." 

"  Yet,  my  child,  what  could  Grant  or  Sherman  have 
done,  if  it  had  not  been  for  the  thousands  of  brave  privates 


384  THE   CHIMNEY-CORNER 

who  were  content  to  do  each  their  imperceptible  little,  — 
if  it  had  not  been  for  the  poor,  unnoticed,  faithful,  never- 
failing  common  soldiers,  who  did  the  work  and  bore  the 
suffering  ?  No  one  man  saved  our  country,  or  could  save 
it ;  nor  could  the  men  have  saved  it  without  the  women. 
Every  mother  that  said  to  her  son,  Go  ;  every  wife  that 
strengthened  the  hands  of  her  husband  ;  every  girl  who 
sent  courageous  letters  to  her  betrothed ;  every  woman  who 
worked  for  a  fair  ;  every  grandam  whose  trembling  hands 
knit  stockings  and  scraped  lint ;  every  little  maiden  who 
hemmed  shirts  and  made  comfort -bags  for  soldiers,  —  each 
and  all  have  been  the  joint  doers  of  a  great  heroic  work,  the 
doing  of  which  has  been  the  regeneration  of  our  era.  A 
whole  generation  has  learned  the  luxury  of  thinking  heroic 
thoughts  and  being  conversant  with  heroic  deeds,  and  I 
have  faith  to  believe  that  all  this  is  not  to  go  out  in  a  mere 
crush  of  fashionable  luxury  and  folly  and  frivolous  empti 
ness,  —  but  that  our  girls  are  going  to  merit  the  high  praise 
given  us  by  De  Tocqueville,  when  he  placed  first  among  the 
causes  of  our  prosperity  the  noble  character  of  American 
women.  Because  foolish  female  persons  in  New  York  are 
striving  to  outdo  the  demi-monde  of  Paris  in  extravagance, 
it  must  not  follow  that  every  sensible  and  patriotic  ma 
tron,  and  every  nice,  modest  young  girl,  must  forthwith  and 
without  inquiry  rush  as  far  after  them  as  they  possibly  can. 
Because  Mrs.  Shoddy  opens  a  ball  in  a  two-thousand-dollar 
lace  dress,  every  girl  in  the  land  need  not  look  with  shame 
on  her  modest  white  muslin.  Somewhere  between  the 
fast  women  of  Paris  and  the  daughters  of  Christian  Ameri 
can  families  there  should  be  established  a  cordon  sanitaire, 
to  keep  out  the  contagion  of  manners,  customs,  and  habits 
with  which  a  noble-minded,  religious  democratic  people 
ought  to  have  nothing  to  do." 

"  Well  now,  Mr.  Crowfield,"   said  the  Dove,  "  since  you 
speak   us  so  fair,  and  expect  so  much   of  us,  we  must  of 


DRESS,   OR   WHO   MAKES    THE   FASHIONS  385 

course  try  not  to  fall  below  your  compliments  ;  but,  after 
all,  tell  us  what  is  the  right  standard  about  dress.  Now 
we  have  daily  lectures  about  this  at  home.  Aunt  Maria 
says  that  she  never  saw  such  times  as  these,  when  mothers 
and  daughters,  church-members  and  worldly  people,  all 
seem  to  be  going  one  way,  and  sit  down  together  and  talk, 
as  they  will,  on  dress  and  fashion,  —  how  to  have  this  made 
and  that  altered.  We  used  to  be  taught,  she  said,  that 
church-members  had  higher  things  to  think  of,  —  that  their 
thoughts  ought  to  be  fixed  on  something  better,  and  that  they 
ought  to  restrain  the  vanity  and  worldliness  of  children  and 
young  people  ;  but  now,  she  says,  even  before  a  girl  is  born, 
dress  is  the  one  thing  needful,  —  the  great  thing  to  be 
thought  of  ;  and  so,  in  every  step  of  the  way  upward,  her 
little  shoes,  and  her  little  bonnets,  and  her  little  dresses, 
and  her  corals  and  her  ribbons,  are  constantly  being  dis 
cussed  in  her  presence,  as  the  one  all-important  object  of 
life.  Aunt  Maria  thinks  mamma  is  dreadful,  because  she  has 
maternal  yearnings  over  our  toilet  successes  and  fortunes  ; 
and  we  secretly  think  Aunt  Maria  is  rather  soured  by  old 
age,  and  has  forgotten  how  a  girl  feels." 

"  The  fact  is,"  said  I,  "  that  the  love  of  dress  and  out 
side  show  has  been  always  such  an  exacting  and  absorbing 
tendency,  that  it  seems  to  have  furnished  work  for  religion 
ists  and  economists,  in  all  ages,  to  keep  it  within  bounds. 
Various  religious  bodies,  at  the  outset,  adopted  severe  rules 
in  protest  against  it.  The  Quakers  and  the  Methodists  pre 
scribed  certain  fixed  modes  of  costume  as  a  barrier  against 
its  frivolities  and  follies.  In  the  .Romish  Church  an  en 
trance  on  any  religious  order  prescribed  entire  and  total 
renunciation  of  all  thought  and  care  for  the  beautiful  in 
person  or  apparel,  as  the  first  step  towards  saintship.  The 
costume  of  the  religieuse  seemed  to  be  purposely  intended 
to  imitate  the  shroudings  and  swathings  of  a  corpse  and 
the  lugubrious  color  of  a  pall,  so  as  forever  to  remind  the 


386  THE   CHIMNEY-CORNER 

wearer  that  she  was  dead  to  the  world  of  ornament  and 
physical  beauty.  All  great  Christian  preachers  and  reform 
ers  have  leveled  their  artillery  against  the  toilet,  from  the 
time  of  St.  Jerome  downward ;  and  Tom  Moore  has  put  into 
beautiful  and  graceful  verse  St.  Jerome's  admonitions  to  the 
fair  churchgoers  of  his  time. 

WHO  IS   THE  MAID? 
ST.  JEROME'S  LOVE. 

Who  is  the  maid  my  spirit  seeks, 

Through  cold  reproof  and  slander's  blight  ? 
Has  she  Love's  roses  on  her  cheeks  ? 

Is  hers  an  eye  of  this  world's  light  ? 
No:  wan  and  sunk  with  midnight  prayer 

Are  the  pale  looks  of  her  I  love  ; 
Or  if,  at  times,  a  light  be  there, 

Its  beam  is  kindled  from  above. 

I  chose  not  her,  my  heart's  elect, 

From  those  who  seek  their  Maker's  shrine 
In  gems  and  garlands  proudly  decked, 

As  if  themselves  were  things  divine. 
No:  Heaven  but  faintly  warms  the  breast 

That  beats  beneath  a  broidered  veil; 
And  she  who  comes  in  glittering  vest 

To  mourn  her  frailty,  still  is  frail. 

Not  so  the  faded  form  I  prize 

And  love,  because  its  bloom  is  gone; 
The  glory  in  those  sainted  eyes 

Is  all  the  grace  her  brow  puts  on. 
And  ne'er  was  Beauty's  dawn  so  bright, 

So  touching,  as  that  form's  decay, 
Which,  like  the  altar's  trembling  light, 

In  holy  lustre  wastes  away. 

"  But  the  defect  of  all  these  modes  of  warfare  on  the  ele 
gances  and  refinements  of  the  toilet  was  that  they  were  too 
indiscriminate.  They  were  in  reality  founded  on  a  false 
principle.  They  took  for  granted  that  there  was  something 
radically  corrupt  and  wicked  in  the  body  and  in  the  physi 
cal  system.  According  to  this  mode  of  viewing  things,  the 


DRESS,   OR   WHO    MAKES    THE   FASHIONS  387 

body  was  a  loathsome  and  pestilent  prison,  in  which  the 
soul  was  locked  up  and  enslaved,  and  the  eyes,  the  ears, 
the  taste,  the  smell,  were  all  so  many  corrupt  traitors  in 
conspiracy  to  poison  her.  Physical  beauty  of  every  sort 
was  a  snare,  a  Circean  enchantment,  to  be  valiantly  con 
tended  with  and  straitly  eschewed.  Hence  they  preached, 
not  moderation,  but  total  abstinence  from  all  pursuit  of 
physical  grace  and  beauty. 

"  Now,  a  resistance  founded  on  an  over-statement  is  con 
stantly  tending  to  reaction.  People  always  have  a  ten 
dency  to  begin  thinking  for  themselves  ;  and  when  they  so 
think,  they  perceive  that  a  good  and  wise  God  would  not 
have  framed  our  bodies  with  such  exquisite  care  only  to 
corrupt  our  souls,  —  that  physical  beauty,  being  created  in 
such  profuse  abundance  around  us,  and  we  being  possessed 
with  such  a  longing  for  it,  must  have  its  uses,  its  legitimate 
sphere  of  exercise.  Even  the  poor,  shrouded  nun,  as  she 
walks  the  convent  garden,  cannot  help  asking  herself  why,  if 
the  crimson  velvet  of  the  rose  was  made  by  God,  all  colors 
except  black  and  white  are  sinful  for  her;  and  the  modest 
Quaker,  after  hanging  all  her  house  and  dressing  all  her 
children  in  drab,  cannot  but  marvel  at  the  sudden  outstreak- 
ing  of  blue  and  yellow  and  crimson  in  the  tulip-beds  under 
her  window,  and  reflect  how  very  differently  the  great  All- 
Father  arrays  the  world's  housekeeping.  The  consequence 
of  all  this  has  been,  that  the  reforms  based upon  these  se 
vere  and  exclusive  views  have  gradually  gone  backward. 
The  Quaker  dress  is  imperceptibly  and  gracefully  melting 
away  into  a  refined  simplicity  of  modern  costume,  which  in 
many  cases  seems  to  be  the  perfection  of  taste.  The  ob 
vious  reflection,  that  one  color  of  the  rainbow  is  quite  as 
much  of  God  as  another,  has  led  the  children  of  gentle 
dove-colored  mothers  to  appear  in  shades  of  rose-color,  blue, 
and  lilac  ;  and  wise  elders  have  said,  it  is  not  so  much  the 
color  or  the  shape  that  we  object  to,  as  giving  too  much 


388  THE   CHIMNEY-CORNER 

time  and  too  much  money,  —  if  the  heart  be  right  with  God 
and  man,  the  bonnet  ribbon  may  be  of  any  shade  you 
please." 

"  But  don't  you  think,"  said  Pheasant,  "  that  a  certain 
fixed  dress,  marking  the  unworldly  character  of  a  religious 
order,  is  desirable  ?  Now,  I  have  said  before  that  I  am 
very  fond  of  dress.  I  have  a  passion  for  beauty  and  com 
pleteness  in  it ;  and  as  long  as  I  am  in  the  world  and  obliged 
to  dress  as  the  world  does,  it  constantly  haunts  me,  and 
tempts  me  to  give  more  time,  more  thought,  more  money,  to 
these  things  than  I  really  think  they  are  worth.  But  I  can 
conceive  of  giving  up  this  thing  altogether  as  being  much 
easier  than  regulating  it  to  the  precise  point.  I  never  read 
of  a  nun's  taking  the  veil  without  a  certain  thrill  of  sym 
pathy.  To  cut  off  one's  hair,  to  take  off  and  cast  from  her, 
one  by  one,  all  one's  trinkets  and  jewels,  to  lie  down  and 
have  the  pall  thrown  over  one,  and  feel  one's  self  once  for 
all  dead  to  the  world,  —  I  cannot  help  feeling  as  if  this  were 
real,  thorough,  noble  renunciation,  and  as  if  one  might  rise 
up  from  it  with  a  grand,  calm  consciousness  of  having  risen 
to  a  higher  and  purer  atmosphere,  and  got  above  all  the 
littlenesses  and  distractions  that  beset  us  here.  So  I  have 
heard  charming  young  Quaker  girls,  who  in  more  thought 
less  days  indulged  in  what  for  them  was  a  slight  shading  of 
worldly  conformity,  say  that  it  was  to  them  a  blessed  rest 
when  they  put  on  the  strict,  plain  dress,  and  felt  that  they 
really  had  taken  up  the  cross  and  turned  their  backs  on 
the  world.  I  can  conceive  of  doing  this,  much  more  easily 
than  I  can  of  striking  the  exact  line  between  worldly  con 
formity  and  noble  aspiration,  in  the  life  I  live  now.'7 

"  My  dear  child,"  said  I,  "  we  all  overlook  one  great 
leading  principle  of  our  nature,  and  that  is,  that  we  are 
made  to  find  a  higher  pleasure  in  self-sacrifice  than  in  any 
form  of  self  -  indulgence.  There  is  something  grand  and 
pathetic  in  the  idea  of  an  entire  self-surrender,  to  which 


DRESS,    OR   WHO    MAKES    THE    FASHIONS  389 

every  human  soul  leaps  up,  as  we  do  to  the  sound  of  mar 
tial  music. 

"  How  many  boys  of  Boston  and  New  York,  who  had 
lived  effeminate  and  idle  lives,  felt  this  new  power  uprising 
in  them  in  our  war  !  How  they  embraced  the  dirt  and 
discomfort  and  fatigue  and  watchings  and  toils  of  camp-life 
with  an  eagerness  of  zest  which  they  had  never  felt  in  the 
pursuit  of  mere  pleasure,  and  wrote  home  burning  letters 
that  they  never  were  so  happy  in  their  lives  !  It  was  not 
that  dirt  and  fatigue  and  discomfort  and  watchings  and 
weariness  were  in  themselves  agreeable,  but  it  was  a  joy  to 
feel  themselves  able  to  bear  all  and  surrender  all  for  some 
thing  higher  than  self.  Many  a  poor  Battery  bully  of  New 
York,  many  a  street  rowdy,  felt  uplifted  by  the  discovery  that 
he  too  had  hid  away  under  the  dirt  and  dust  of  his  former 
life  this  divine  and  precious  jewel.  He  leaped  for  joy  to 
find  that  he  too  could  be  a  hero.  Think  of  the  hundreds  of 
thousands  of  plain  ordinary  workingmen,  and  of  seemingly 
ordinary  boys,  who,  but  for  such  a  crisis,  might  have  passed 
through  life  never  knowing  this  to  be  in  them,  and  who 
courageously  endured  hunger  and  thirst  and  cold,  and  sepa 
ration  from  dearest  friends,  for  days  and  weeks  and  months, 
when  they  might,  at  any  day,  have  bought  a  respite  by 
deserting  their  country's  flag !  Starving  boys,  sick  at  heart, 
dizzy  in  head,  pining  for  home  and  mother,  still  found 
warmth  and  comfort  in  the  one  thought  that  they  could 
suffer,  die,  for  their  country ;  and  the  graves  at  Salisbury 
and  Andersonville  show  in  how  many  souls  this  noble  power 
of  self -sacrifice  to  the  higher  good  was  lodged,  —  how  many 
there  were,  even  in  the  humblest  walks  of  life,  who  pre 
ferred  death  by  torture  to  life  in  dishonor. 

"  It  is  this  heroic  element  in  man  and  woman  that  makes 
self-sacrifice  an  ennobling  and  purifying  ordeal  in  any  reli 
gious  profession.  The  man  really  is  taken  into  a  higher 
region  of  his  own  nature,  and  finds  a  pleasure  in  the  exer- 


390  THE    CHIMNEY-CORNER 

cise  of  higher  faculties  which  he  did  not  suppose  himself  to 
possess.  Whatever  sacrifice  is  supposed  to  be  duty,  whether 
the  supposition  be  really  correct  or  not,  has  in  it  an  enno 
bling  and  purifying  power ;  and  thus  the  eras  of  conversion 
from  one  form  of  the  Christian  religion  to  another  are  often 
marked  with  a  real  and  permanent  exaltation  of  the  whole 
character.  But  it  does  not  follow  that  certain  religious 
beliefs  and  ordinances  are  in  themselves  just,  because  they 
thus  touch  the  great  heroic  master-chord  of  the  human  soul. 
To  wear  sackcloth  and  sleep  on  a  plank  may  have  been  of 
use  to  many  souls,  as  symbolizing  the  awakening  of  this 
higher  nature  ;  but,  still,  the  religion  of  the  Xew  Testament 
is  plainly  one  which  calls  to  no  such  outward  and  evident 
sacrifices. 

"  It  wras  John  the  Baptist,  and  not  the  Messiah,  who 
dwelt  in  the  wilderness  and  wrore  garments  of  camel's  hair  ; 
and  Jesus  was  commented  on,  not  for  his  asceticism,  but  for 
his  cheerful,  social  acceptance  of  the  average  innocent  wants 
and  enjoyments  of  humanity.  (  The  Son  of  man  came  eat 
ing  and  drinking.'  The  great,  and  never  ceasing,  and  utter 
self-sacrifice  of  his  life  was  not  signified  by  any  peculiarity 
of  costume,  or  language,  or  manner ;  it  showed  itself  only 
as  it  unconsciously  welled  up  in  all  his  words  and  actions, 
in  his  estimates  of  life,  in  all  that  marked  him  out  as  a  be 
ing  of  a  higher  and  holier  sphere." 

"  Then  you  do  not  believe  in  influencing  this  subject  of 
dress  by  religious  persons'  adopting  any  particular  laws  of 
costume  ?  "  said  Pheasant. 

"I  do  not  see  it  to  be  possible,"  said  I,  "  considering  how 
society  is  made  up.  There  are  such  differences  of  taste  and 
character,  —  people  move  in  such  different  spheres,  are 
influenced  by  such  different  circumstances,  —  that  all  we 
can  do  is  to  lay  down  certain  great  principles,  and  leave 
it  to  every  one  to  apply  them  according  to  individual 
needs." 


DRESS,    OR   WHO    MAKES    THE   FASHIONS  391 

"  But  what  are  these  principles  ?  There  is  the  grand 
inquiry." 

"  Well,"  said  I,  "  let  us  feel  our  way.  In  the  first 
place,  then,  we  are  all  agreed  in  one  starting-point,  —  that 
beauty  is  not  to  be  considered  as  a  bad  thing,  —  that  the 
love  of  ornament  in  our  outward  and  physical  life  is  not  a 
sinful  or  a  dangerous  feeling,  and  only  leads  to  evil,  as  all 
other  innocent  things  do,  by  being  used  in  wrong  ways. 
So  far  we  are  all  agreed,  are  we  not  ?  " 

"  Certainly,"  said  all  the  voices. 

"  It  is,  therefore,  neither  wicked  nor  silly  nor  weak- 
minded  to  like  beautiful  dress,  and  all  that  goes  to  make 
it  up.  Jewelry,  diamonds,  pearls,  emeralds,  rubies,  and  all 
sorts  of  pretty  things  that  are  made  of  them,  are  as  lawful 
and  innocent  objects  of  admiration  and  desire,  as  flowers  or 
birds  or  butterflies,  or  the  tints  of  evening  skies.  Gems, 
in  fact,  are  a  species  of  mineral  flower ;  they  are  the  blos 
soms  of  the  dark,  hard  mine  ;  and  what  they  want  in  per 
fume  they  make  up  in  durability.  The  best  Christian  in 
the  world  may,  without  the  least  inconsistency,  admire 
them,  and  say,  as  a  charming,  benevolent  old  Quaker  lady 
once  said  to  me,  '  I  do  so  love  to  look  at  beautiful  jewelry ! ' 
The  love  of  beautiful  dress,  in  itself,  therefore,  so  far  from 
being  in  a  bad  sense  worldly,  may  be  the  same  indication 
of  a  refined  and  poetical  nature  that  is  given  by  the  love 
of  flowers  and  of  natural  objects. 

"  In  the  third  place,  there  is  nothing  in  itself  wrong,  or 
unworthy  a  rational  being,  in  a  certain  degree  of  attention 
to  the  fashion  of  society  in  our  costume.  It  is  not  wrong  to 
be  annoyed  at  unnecessary  departures  from  the  commonly 
received  practices  of  good  society  in  the  matter  of  the  ar 
rangement  of  our  toilet ;  and  it  would  indicate  rather  an 
unamiable  want  of  sympathy  with  our  fellow  beings,  if  we 
were  not  willing,  for  the  most  part,  to  follow  what  they  indi 
cate  to  be  agreeable  in  the  disposition  of  our  outward  affairs." 


392  THE   CHIMNEY-CORNER 

"  Well,  I  must  say,  Mr.  Crowfield,  you  are  allowing  us 
all  a  very  generous  margin,"  said  Humming-Bird. 

"  But  now,"  said  I,  "  I  am  coming  to  the  restrictions. 
When  is  love  of  dress  excessive  and  wrong  ?  To  this  I 
answer  by  stating  my  faith  in  one  of  old  Plato's  ideas,  in 
which  he  speaks  of  beauty  and  its  uses.  He  says  there 
were  two  impersonations  of  beauty  worshiped  under  the 
name  of  Venus  in  the  ancient  times,  —  the  one  celestial, 
born  of  the  highest  gods,  the  other  earthly.  To  the  earthly 
Venus  the  sacrifices  were  such  as  were  more  trivial ;  to  the 
celestial,  such  as  were  more  holy.  '  The  worship  of  the 
earthly  Venus,'  he  says,  '  sends  us  oftentimes  on  unworthy 
and  trivial  errands,  but  the  worship  of  the  celestial  to  high 
and  honorable  friendships,  to  noble  aspirations  and  heroic 
actions.' 

"Now  it  seems  to  me  that,  if  we  bear  in  mind  this  truth 
in  regard  to  beauty,  we  shall  have  a  test  with  which  to  try 
ourselves  in  the  matter  of  physical  adornment.  We  are 
always  excessive  when  we  sacrifice  the  higher  beauty  to 
attain  the  lower  one.  A  woman  who  will  sacrifice  domestic 
affection,  conscience,  self-respect,  honor,  to  love  of  dress,  we 
all  agree,  loves  dress  too  much.  She  loses  the  true  and 
higher  beauty  of  womanhood  for  the  lower  beauty  of  gems 
and  flowers  and  colors.  A  girl  who  sacrifices  to  dress  all 
her  time,  all  her  strength,  all  her  money,  to  the  neglect  of 
the  cultivation  of  her  mind  and  heart,  and  to  the  neglect 
of  the  claims  of  others  on  her  helpfulness,  is  sacrificing  the 
higher  to  the  lower  beauty  ;  her  fault  is  not  the  love  of 
beauty,  but  loving  the  wrong  and  inferior  kind. 

"  It  is  remarkable  that  the  directions  of  Holy  Writ,  in 
regard  to  the  female  dress,  should  distinctly  take  note  of 
this  difference  between  the  higher  and  the  lower  beauty 
which  we  find  in  the  works  of  Plato.  The  Apostle  gives 
no  rule,  no  specific  costume,  which  should  mark  the  Chris 
tian  woman  from  the  Pagan ;  but  says,  '  whose  adorning, 


DRESS,    OR   WHO    MAKES    THE    FASHIONS  393 

let  it  not  be  that  outward  adorning  of  plaiting  the  hair, 
and  of  wearing  of  gold,  or  of  putting  on  of  apparel ;  but  let 
it  be  the  hidden  man  of  the  heart,  in  that  which  is  not 
corruptible,  even  the  ornament  of  a  meek  and  quiet  spirit, 
which  is  in  the  sight  of  God  of  great  price.'  The  gold  and 
gems  and  apparel  are  not  forbidden  ;  but  we  are  told  not 
to  depend  on  them  for  beauty,  to  the  neglect  of  those  im 
perishable,  immortal  graces  that  belong  to  the  soul.  The 
makers  of  fashion  among  whom  Christian  women  lived 
when  the  Apostle  wrote  were  the  same  class  of  brilliant  and 
worthless  Aspasias  who  make  the  fashions  of  modern  Paris ; 
and  all  womankind  was  sunk  into  slavish  adoration  of  mere 
physical  adornment  when  the  gospel  sent  forth  among  them 
this  call  to  the  culture  of  a  higher  and  immortal  beauty. 

"  In  fine,  girls,"  said  I,  "  you  may  try  yourselves  by 
this  standard.  You  love  dress  too  much  when  you  care 
more  for  your  outward  adornings  than  for  your  inward  dis 
positions,  when  it  afflicts  you  more  to  have  torn  your 
dress  than  to  have  lost  your  temper,  when  you  are  more 
troubled  by  an  ill-fitting  gown  than  by  a  neglected  duty,  — 
when  you  are  less  concerned  at  having  made  an  unjust  com 
ment,  or  spread  a  scandalous  report,  than  at  having  worn 
a  passe  bonnet,  when  you  are  less  troubled  at  the  thought 
of  being  found  at  the  last  great  feast  without  the  wedding 
garment,  than  at  being  found  at  the  party  to-night  in  the 
fashion  of  last  year.  No  Christian  woman,  as  I  view  it, 
ought  to  give  such  attention  to  her  dress  as  to  allow  it  to 
take  up  all  of  three  very  important  things,  viz  :  — 

All  her  time. 

All  her  strength. 

All  her  money. 

Whoever  does  this  lives  not  the  Christian,  but  the  Pagan 
life,  —  worships  not  at  the  Christian's  altar  of  our  Lord 
Jesus,  but  at  the  shrine  of  the  lower  Venus  of  Corinth  and 
Rome." 


394  THE   CHIMNEY-CORNER 

"Oh  now,  Mr.  Crowfield,  you  frighten  me,"  said  Hum 
ming-Bird.  "  1 7m  so  afraid,  do  you  know,  that  I  am  doing 
exactly  that." 

"  And  so  am  I,"  said  Pheasant ;  "  and  yet,  certainly,  it  is 
not  what  I  mean  or  intend  to  do." 

"  But  how  to  help  it,"  said  Dove. 

"  My  dears,"  said  I,  "  where  there  is  a  will  there  is  a 
way.  Only  resolve  that  you  will  put  the  true  beauty  first, 
—  that,  even  if  you  do  have  to  seem  unfashionable,  you 
will  follow  the  highest  beauty  of  womanhood,  —  and  the 
battle  is  half  gained.  Only  resolve  that  your  time,  your 
strength,  your  money,  such  as  you  have,  shall  not  all  — 
nor  more  than  half  —  be  given  to  mere  outward  adornment, 
and  you  will  go  right.  It  requires  only  an  army  of  girls 
animated  with  this  noble  purpose  to  declare  independence  in 
America,  and  emancipate  us  from  the  decrees  and  tyrannies 
of  French  actresses  and  ballet-dancers.  En  avant,  girls ! 
You  yet  can,  if  you  will,  save  the  republic." 


WHAT    ARE    THE    SOURCES    OF    BEAUTY    IN    DRESS 

THE  conversation  on  dress  which  I  had  held  with  Jenny 
and  her  little  covey  of  Birds  of  Paradise  appeared  to  have 
worked  in  the  minds  of  the  fair  council,  for  it  was  not  long 
before  they  invaded  my  study  again  in  a  body.  They  were 
going  out  to  a  party,  but  called  for  Jenny,  and  of  course 
gave  me  and  Mrs.  Crowfield  the  privilege  of  seeing  them 
equipped  for  conquest. 

Latterly,  I  must  confess,  the  mysteries  of  the  toilet  rites 
have  impressed  me  with  a  kind  of  superstitious  awe. 
Only  a  year  ago  my  daughter  Jenny  had  smooth  dark  hair, 
which  she  wreathed  in  various  soft,  flowing  lines  about 
her  face,  and  confined  in  a  classical  knot  on  the  back  of 
her  head.  Jenny  had  rather  a  talent  for  coiffure,  and  the 
arrangement  of  her  hair  was  one  of  my  little  artistic  delights. 
She  always  had  something  there,  —  a  leaf,  a  spray,  a  bud  or 
blossom,  that  looked  fresh,  and  had  a  sort  of  poetical  grace 
of  its  own. 

But  in  a  gradual  way  all  this  has  been  changing. 
Jenny's  hair  first  became  slightly  wavy,  then  curly,  finally 
frizzly,  presenting  a  tumbled  and  twisted  appearance,  which 
gave  me  great  inward  concern  ;  but  when  I  spoke  upon  the 
subject  I  was  always  laughingly  silenced  with  the  definitive 
settling  remark  :  "  Oh,  it 's  the  fashion,  papa  !  Everybody 
wears  it  so." 

I  particularly  objected  to  the  change  on  my  own  small 
account,  because  the  smooth,  breakfast-table  coiffure,  which 
I  had  always  so  much  enjoyed,  was  now  often  exchanged 


396  THE    CHIMNEY-CORNER 

for  a  peculiarly  bristling  appearance ;  the  hair  being  va 
riously  twisted,  tortured,  woven,  and  wound,  without  the 
least  view  to  immediate  beauty  or  grace.  But  all  this,  I 
was  informed,  was  the  necessary  means  towards  crimping  for 
some  evening  display  of  a  more  elaborate  nature  than  usual. 

Mrs.  Crowfield  and  myself  are  not  party-goers  by  profes 
sion,  but  Jenny  insists  on  our  going  out  at  least  once  or 
twice  in  a  season,  just,  as  she  says,  to  keep  up  with  the 
progress  of  society  ;  and  at  these  times  I  have  been  struck 
with  frequent  surprise  by  the  general  untidiness  which  ap 
peared  to  have  come  over  the  heads  of  all  my  female  friends. 
I  know,  of  course,  that  I  am  only  a  poor,  ignorant,  bewil 
dered  man  creature  ;  but  to  my  uninitiated  eyes  they  looked 
as  if  they  had  all,  after  a  very  restless  and  perturbed  sleep, 
come  out  of  bed  without  smoothing  their  tumbled  and  dis 
ordered  locks.  Then,  every  young  lady,  without  exception, 
seemed  to  have  one  kind  of  hair,  and  that  the  kind  which 
was  rather  suggestive  of  the  term  "  woolly."  Every  sort  of 
wild  abandon  of  frowzy  locks  seemed  to  be  in  vogue ;  in 
some  cases  the  hair  appearing  to  my  vision  nothing  but  a 
confused  snarl,  in  which  glittered  tinklers,  spangles,  and 
bits  of  tinsel,  and  from  which  waved  long  pennants  and 
streamers  of  different  colored  ribbons. 

I  wras  in  fact  very  greatly  embarrassed  by  my  first  meet 
ing  with  some  very  charming  girls,  whom  I  thought  I  knew 
as  familiarly  as  my  own  daughter  Jenny,  and  whose  soft, 
pretty  hair  had  often  formed  the  object  of  my  admiration. 
Now,  however,  they  revealed  themselves  to  me  in  coiffures 
which  forcibly  reminded  me  of  the  electrical  experiments 
which  used  to  entertain  us  in  college,  when  the  subject 
stood  on  the  insulated  stool,  and  each  particular  hair  of  his 
head  bristled  and  rose,  and  set  up,  as  it  were,  on  its  own 
account.  This  high-flying  condition  of  the  tresses,  and  the 
singularity  of  the  ornaments  which  appeared  to  be  thrown 
at  haphazard  into  them,  suggested  so  oddly  the  idea  of  a 


WHAT  ARE  THE  SOURCES  OF  BEAUTY  IN  DRESS   397 

bewitched  person,  that  I  could  scarcely  converse  with  any 
presence  of  mind,  or  realize  that  these  really  were  the  nice, 
well-informed,  sensible  little  girls  of  my  own  neighborhood, 
—  the  good  daughters,  good  sisters,  Sunday-school  teachers, 
and  other  familiar  members  of  our  best  educated  circles ; 
and  I  came  away  from  the  party  in  a  sort  of  blue  maze,  and 
hardly  in  a  state  to  conduct  myself  with  credit  in  the  exami 
nation  through  which  I  knew  Jenny  would  put  me  as  to 
the  appearance  of  her  different  friends. 

I  know  not  how  it  is,  but  the  glamour  of  fashion  in  the 
eyes  of  girlhood  is  so  complete  that  the  oddest,  wildest, 
most  uncouth  devices  find  grace  and  favor  in  the  eyes  of 
even  well-bred  girls,  when  once  that  invisible,  ineffable 
aura  has  breathed  over  them  which  declares  them  to  be 
fashionable.  They  may  defy  them  for  a  time,  —  they  may 
pronounce  them  horrid  ;  but  it  is  with  a  secretly  melting 
heart,  and  Math  a  mental  reservation  to  look  as  nearly  like 
the  abhorred  spectacle  as  they  possibly  can  on  the  first 
favorable  opportunity. 

On  the  occasion  of  the  visit  referred  to,  Jenny  ushered 
her  three  friends  in  triumph  into  my  study  ;  and,  in  truth, 
the  little  room  seemed  to  be  perfectly  transformed  by  their 
brightness.  My  honest,  nice,  lovable  little  Yankee  fireside 
girls  were,  to  be  sure,  got  up  in  a  style  that  would  have 
done  credit  to  Madame  Pompadour,  or  any  of  the  most 
questionable  characters  of  the  time  of  Louis  XIV.  or  XV. 
They  were  frizzled  and  powdered,  and  built  up  in  elaborate 
devices  ;  they  wore  on  their  hair  flowers,  gems,  streamers, 
tinklers,  humming-birds,  butterflies,  South  American  beetles, 
beads,  bugles,  and  all  imaginable  rattletraps,  which  jingled 
and  clinked  with  every  motion  ;  and  yet,  as  they  were 
three  or  four  fresh,  handsome,  intelligent,  bright-eyed  girls, 
there  was  no  denying  the  fact  that  they  did  look  extremely 
pretty ;  and  as  they  sailed  hither  and  thither  before  me, 
and  gazed  down  upon  me  in  the  saucy  might  of  their  rosy 


398  THE   CHIMNEY-CORNIER 

girlhood,  there  was  a  gay  defiance  in  Jenny's  demand, 
"Now,  papa,  how  do  you  like  us  ?  " 

"  Very  charming,"  answered  I,  surrendering  at  discretion. 

"  I  told  you,  girls,  that  you  could  convert  him  to  the 
fashions,  if  he  should  once  see  you  in  party  trim." 

"  I  beg  pardon,  my  dear  ;  I  am  not  converted  to  the 
fashion,  but  to  you,  and  that  is  a  point  on  which  I  did  n't 
need  conversion  ;  but  the  present  fashions,  even  so  fairly 
represented  as  I  see  them,  I  humbly  confess  I  dislike." 

"  Oh,  Mr.  Crowfield  !  " 

"  Yes,  my  dears,  I  do.  But  then,  I  protest,  I  'm  not 
fairly  treated.  I  think,  for  a  young  American  girl,  who 
looks  as  most  of  my  fair  friends  do  look,  to  come  down 
with  her  bright  eyes  and  all  her  little  panoply  of  graces 
upon  an  old  fellow  like  me,  and  expect  him  to  like  a 
fashion  merely  because  she  looks  well  in  it,  is  all  sheer 
nonsense.  Why,  girls,  if  you  wore  rings  in  your  noses, 
and  bangles  on  your  arms  up  to  your  elbows,  if  you  tied 
your  hair  in  a  war-knot  on  the  top  of  your  heads  like  the 
Sioux  Indians,  you  would  still  look  pretty.  The  question 
is  n't,  as  I  view  it,  whether  you  look  pretty,  —  for  that  you 
do,  and  that  you  will,  do  what  you  please  and  dress  how 
you  will.  The  question  is  whether  you  might  not  look 
prettier,  whether  another  style  of  dress,  and  another  mode 
of  getting  up,  would  not  be  far  more  becoming.  I  am  one 
who  thinks  that  it  would." 

"Now,  Mr.  Crowfield,  you  positively  are  too  bad,"  said 
Humming-Bird,  whose  delicate  head  was  encircled  by  a  sort 
of  crepy  cloud  of  bright  hair,  sparkling  with  gold-dust  and 
spangles,  in  the  midst  of  which,  just  over  her  forehead,  a 
gorgeous  blue  butterfly  was  perched,  while  a  confused  mix 
ture  of  hairs,  gold-powder,  spangles,  stars,  and  tinkling 
ornaments  fell  in  a  sort  of  cataract  down  her  pretty  neck. 
"  You  see,  we  girls  think  everything  of  you ;  and  now  we 
don't  like  it  that  you  don't  like  our  fashions." 


WHAT   ARE   THE   SOURCES   OF   BEAUTY   IN   DRESS      399 

"Why,  my  little  princess,  so  long  as  I  like  you  better 
than  your  fashions,  and  merely  think  they  are  not  worthy 
of  you,  what 's  the  harm  ?  " 

"  Oh  yes,  to  be  sure.  You  sweeten  the  dose  to  us  babies 
with  that  sugarplum.  But  really,  Mr.  Crowfield,  why  don't 
you  like  the  fashions  ?  " 

"  Because,  to  my  view,  they  are  in  great  part  in  false  taste, 
and  injure  the  beauty  of  the  girls,"  said  I.  "They  are 
inappropriate  to  their  characters,  and  make  them  look  like 
a  kind  and  class  of  women  whom  they  do  not,  and  I  trust 
never  will,  resemble  internally,  and  whose  mark  therefore 
they  ought  not  to  bear  externally.  But  there  you  are,  be 
guiling  me  into  a  sermon  which  you  will  only  hate  me  in 
your  hearts  for  preaching.  Go  along,  children !  You  cer 
tainly  look  as  well  as  anybody  can  in  that  style  of  getting 
up ;  so  go  to  your  party,  and  to-morrow  night,  when  you  are 
tired  and  sleepy,  if  you  '11  come  with  your  crochet,  and  sit 
in  my  study,  I  will  read  you  Christopher  Crowfield's  disser 
tation  on  dress." 

"  That  will  be  amusing,  to  say  the  least,"  said  Humming- 
Bird ;  "  and,  be  sure,  we  will  all  be  here.  And  mind,  you 
have  to  show  good  reasons  for  disliking  the  present  fashion." 

So  the  next  evening  there  was  a  worsted  party  in  my 
study,  sitting  in  the  midst  of  which  I  read  as  follows :  — 

WHAT    ARE    THE    SOURCES    OF    BEAUTY    IN    DRESS 

"  The  first  one  is  appropriateness.  Colors  and  forms  and 
modes,  in  themselves  graceful  or  beautiful,  can  become  un 
graceful  and  ridiculous  simply  through  inappropriateness. 
The  most  lovely  bonnet  that  the  most  approved  modiste  can 
invent,  if  worn  on  the  head  of  a  coarse-faced  Irishwoman 
bearing  a  market-basket  on  her  arm,  excites  no  emotion  but 
that  of  the  ludicrous.  The  most  elegant  and  brilliant  even 
ing  dress,  if  worn  in  the  daytime  in  a  railroad  car,  strikes 
every  one  with  a  sense  of  absurdity ;  whereas  both  these 


400  THE   CHIMNEY-CORNER 

objects  in  appropriate  associations  would  excite  only  the  idea 
of  beauty.  So  a  mode  of  dress  obviously  intended  for  driv 
ing  strikes  us  as  outre  in  a  parlor ;  and  a  parlor  dress  would 
no  less  shock  our  eyes  on  horseback.  In  short,  the  course 
of  this  principle  through  all  varieties  of  form  can  easily  be 
perceived.  Besides  appropriateness  to  time,  place,  and  cir 
cumstances,  there  is  appropriateness  to  age,  position,  and 
character.  This  is  the  foundation  of  all  our  ideas  of  profes 
sional  propriety  in  costume.  One  would  not  like  to  see  a 
clergyman  in  his  external  air  and  appointments  resembling 
a  gentleman  of  the  turf ;  one  would  not  wish  a  refined  and 
modest  scholar  to  wear  the  outward  air  of  a  fast  fellow,  or 
an  aged  and  venerable  statesman  to  appear  with  all  the 
peculiarities  of  a  young  dandy.  The  flowers,  feathers,  and 
furbelows  which  a  light-hearted  young  girl  of  seventeen 
embellishes  by  the  airy  grace  with  which  she  wears  them, 
are  simply  ridiculous  when  transferred  to  the  toilet  of  her 
serious,  well-meaning  mamma,  who  bears  them  about  with 
an  anxious  face,  merely  because  a  loquacious  milliner  has 
assured  her,  with  many  protestations,  that  it  is  the  fashion, 
and  the  only  thing  remaining  for  her  to  do. 

"  There  are,  again,  modes  of  dress  in  themselves  very 
beautiful  and  very  striking,  which  are  peculiarly  adapted  to 
theatrical  representation  and  to  pictures,  but  the  adoption 
of  which  as  a  part  of  unprofessional  toilet  produces  a  sense 
of  incongruity.  A  mode  of  dress  may  be  in  perfect  taste  on 
the  stage,  that  would  be  absurd  in  an  evening  party,  absurd 
in  the  street,  absurd,  in  short,  everywhere  else. 

"  Now  you  come  to  my  first  objection  to  our  present  Ameri 
can  toilet, — its  being  to  a  very  great  extent  inappropriate 
to  our  climate,  to  our  habits  of  life  and  thought,  and  to  the 
whole  structure  of  ideas  on  which  our  life  is  built.  What 
we  want,  apparently,  is  some  court  of  inquiry  and  adaptation 
that  shall  pass  judgment  on  the  fashions  of  other  countries, 
and  modify  them  to  make  them  a  graceful  expression  of  our 


WHAT   ARE   THE   SOURCES   OF   BEAUTY   IN   DRESS      401 

own  national  character,  and  modes  of  thinking  and  living. 
A  certain  class  of  women  in  Paris  at  this  present  hour  makes 
the  fashions  that  rule  the  feminine  world.  They  are  women 
who  live  only  for  the  senses,  with  as  utter  and  obvious  dis 
regard  of  any  moral  or  intellectual  purpose  to  be  answered 
in  living  as  a  paroquet  or  a  macaw.  They  have  no  family 
ties ;  love,  in  its  pure  domestic  sense,  is  an  impossibility  in 
their  lot ;  religion  in  any  sense  is  another  impossibility  ;  and 
their  whole  intensity  of  existence,  therefore,  is  concentrated 
on  the  question  of  sensuous  enjoyment,  and  that  personal 
adornment  which  is  necessary  to  secure  it.  When  the  great 
ruling  country  in  the  world  of  taste  and  fashion  has  fallen 
into  such  a  state  that  the  virtual  leaders  of  fashion  are  women 
of  this  character,  it  is  not  to  be  supposed  that  the  fashions 
emanating  from  them  will  be  of  a  kind  well  adapted  to 
express  the  ideas,  the  thoughts,  the  state  of  society,  of  a  great 
Christian  democracy  such  as  ours  ought  to  be. 

"  What  is  called,  for  example,  the  Pompadour  style  of 
dress,  so  much  in  vogue  of  late,  we  can  see  to  be  perfectly 
adapted  to  the  kind  of  existence  led  by  dissipated  women 
whose  life  is  one  revel  of  excitement ;  and  who,  never  pro 
posing  to  themselves  any  intellectual  employment  or  any 
domestic  duty,  can  afford  to  spend  three  or  four  hours  every 
day  under  the  hands  of  a  waiting-maid,  in  alternately  tan 
gling  and  untangling  their  hair.  Powder,  paint,  gold-dust 
and  silver-dust,  pomatums,  cosmetics,  are  all  perfectly  ap 
propriate  where  the  ideal  of  life  is  to  keep  up  a  false  show  of 
beauty  after  the  true  bloom  is  wasted  by  dissipation.  The 
woman  who  never  goes  to  bed  till  morning,  who  never  even 
dresses  herself,  who  never  takes  a  needle  in  her  hand,  who 
never  goes  to  church,  and  never  entertains  one  serious  idea 
of  duty  of  any  kind,  when  got  up  in  Pompadour  style,  has, 
to  say  the  truth,  the  good  taste  and  merit  of  appropriate 
ness.  Her  dress  expresses  just  what  she  is,  —  all  false,  all 
artificial,  all  meretricious  and  unnatural;  no  part  or  portion 


402  THE   CHIMNEY-CORNER 

of  her  from  which  it  might  be  inferred  what  her  Creator 
originally  designed  her  to  be. 

"  But  when  a  nice  little  American  girl,  who  has  been 
brought  up  to  cultivate  her  mind,  to  refine  her  taste,  to  care 
for  her  health,  to  be  a  helpful  daughter  and  a  good  sister,  to 
visit  the  poor  and  teach  in  Sunday  schools  ;  when  a  good, 
sweet,  modest  little  puss  of  this  kind  combs  all  her  pretty 
hair  backward  till  it  is  one  mass  of  frowsy  confusion ;  when 
she  powders,  and  paints  under  her  eyes  ;  when  she  adopts, 
with  eager  enthusiasm,  every  outre,  unnatural  fashion  that 
comes  from  the  most  dissipated  foreign  circles,  —  she  is  in 
bad  taste,  because  she  does  not  represent  either  her  charac 
ter,  her  education,  or  her  good  points.  She  looks  like  a 
second-rate  actress,  when  she  is,  in  fact,  a  most  thoroughly 
respectable,  estimable,  lovable  little  girl,  and  on  the  way,  as 
we  poor  fellows  fondly  hope,  to  bless  some  one  of  us  with 
her  tenderness  and  care  in  some  nice  home  in  the  future. 

"  It  is  not  the  fashion  in  America  for  young  girls  to  have 
waiting-maids,  —  in  foreign  countries  it  is  the  fashion.  All 
this  meretricious  toilet  —  so  elaborate,  so  complicated,  and  so 
contrary  to  nature  —  must  be  accomplished,  and  it  is  accom 
plished,  by  the  busy  little  fingers  of  each  girl  for  herself  ; 
and  so  it  seems  to  be  very  evident  that  a  style  of  hair-dress 
ing  which  it  will  require  hours  to  disentangle,  which  must 
injure  and  in  time  ruin  the  natural  beauty  of  the  hair,  ought 
to  be  one  thing  which  a  well-regulated  court  of  inquiry  would 
reject  in  our  American  fashions. 

"  Again,  the  genius  of  American  life  is  for  simplicity  and 
absence  of  ostentation.  We  have  no  parade  of  office :  our  pub 
lic  men  wear  no  robes,  no  stars,  garters,  collars,  etc.  ;  and  it 
would,  therefore,  be  in  good  taste  in  our  women  to  cultivate 
simple  styles  of  dress.  ISTow  I  object  to  the  present  fashions, 
as  adopted  from  France,  that  they  are  flashy  and  theatrical. 
Having  their  origin  with  a  community  whose  senses  are 
blunted,  drugged,  and  deadened  with  dissipation  and  ostenta- 


WHAT  ARE  THE  SOURCES  OF  BEAUTY  IN  DRESS   403 

tion,  they  reject  the  simpler  forms  of  beauty,  and  seek  for 
startling  effects,  for  odd  and  unexpected  results.  The  con 
templation  of  one  of  our  fashionable  churches,  at  the  hour 
when  its  fair  occupants  pour  forth,  gives  one  a  great  deal  of 
surprise.  The  toilets  there  displayed  might  have  been  in 
good  keeping  among  showy  Parisian  women  in  an  opera 
house,  but  even  their  original  inventors  would  have  been 
shocked  at  the  idea  of  carrying  them  into  a  church.  The 
rawness  of  our  American  mind  as  to  the  subject  of  propriety 
in  dress  is  nowhere  more  shown  than  in  the  fact  that  no  ap 
parent  distinction  is  made  between  church  and  opera  house 
in  the  adaptation  of  attire.  Very  estimable  and  we  trust 
very  religious  young  women  sometimes  enter  the  house  of 
God  in  a  costume  which  makes  their  utterance  of  the  words 
of  the  litany  and  the  acts  of  prostrate  devotion  in  the  service 
seem  almost  burlesque.  When  a  brisk  little  creature  comes 
into  a  pew  with  hair  frizzed  till  it  stands  on  end  in  a  most 
startling  manner,  rattling  strings  of  beads  and  bits  of  tinsel, 
mounting  over  all  some  pert  little  hat  with  a  red  or  green 
feather  standing  saucily  upright  in  front,  she  may  look  ex 
ceedingly  pretty  and  piquant ;  and,  if  she  came  there  for 
a  game  of  croquet  or  a  tableau  party,  would  be  all  in  very 
good  taste  ;  but  as  she  comes  to  confess  that  she  is  a  miser 
able  sinner,  that  she  has  done  the  things  she  ought  not  to 
have  done,  and  left  undone  the  things  she  ought  to  have 
done,  —  as  she  takes  upon  her  lips  most  solemn  and  tremen 
dous  words,  whose  meaning  runs  far  beyond  life  into  a 
sublime  eternity,  —  there  is  a  discrepancy  which  would  be 
ludicrous  if  it  were  not  melancholy. 

"  One  is  apt  to  think,  at  first  view,  that  St.  Jerome  was 
right  in  saying, 

"  '  She  who  comes  in  glittering  vest 
To  mourn  her  frailty,  still  is  frail.' 

But  St.  Jerome  was  in  the  wrong,  after  all ;  for  a  flashy, 
unsuitable  attire  in  church  is  not  always  a  mark  of  an  un- 


404  THE   CHIMNEY-CORNER 

devout  or  entirely  worldly  mind  ;  it  is  simply  a  mark  of  a 
raw,  uncultivated  taste.  In  Italy,  the  ecclesiastical  law  pre 
scribing  a  uniform  black  dress  for  the  churches  gives  a  sort 
of  education  to  European  ideas  of  propriety  in  toilet,  which 
prevents  churches  from  being  made  theatres  for  the  same 
kind  of  display  which  is  held  to  be  in  good  taste  at  places 
of  public  amusement.  It  is  but  justice  to  the  inventors  of 
Parisian  fashions  to  say  that,  had  they  ever  had  the  smallest 
idea  of  going  to  church  and  Sunday  school,  as  our  good  girls 
do,  they  would  immediately  have  devised  toilets  appropri 
ate  to  such  exigencies.  If  it  were  any  part  of  their  plan  of 
life  to  appear  statedly  in  public  to  confess  themselves  (  mis 
erable  sinners,'  we  should  doubtless  have  sent  over  here 
the  design  of  some  graceful  penitential  habit,  which  would 
give  our  places  of  worship  a  much  more  appropriate  air  than 
they  now  have.  As  it  is,  it  would  form  a  subject  for  such 
a  court  of  inquiry  and  adaptation  as  we  have  supposed,  to 
draw  a  line  between  the  costume  of  the  theatre  and  the 
church. 

"  In  the  same  manner,  there  is  a  want  of  appropriateness 
in  the  costume  of  our  American  women,  who  display  in  the 
street  promenade  a  style  of  dress  and  adornment  originally 
intended  for  showy  carriage  drives  in  such  great  exhibition 
grounds  as  the  Bois  de  Boulogne.  The  makers  of  Parisian 
fashions  are  not  generally  walkers.  They  do  not,  with  all 
their  extravagance,  have  the  bad  taste  to  trail  yards  of  silk 
and  velvet  over  the  mud  and  dirt  of  a  pavement,  or  prome 
nade  the  street  in  a  costume  so  pronounced  and  striking  as 
to  draw  the  involuntary  glance  of  every  eye  ;  and  the  showy 
toilets  displayed  on  the  pave  by  American  young  women 
have  more  than  once  exposed  them  to  misconstruction  in 
the  eyes  of  foreign  observers. 

"  Next  to  appropriateness,  the  second  requisite  to  beauty 
in  dress  I  take  to  be  unity  of  effect.  In  speaking  of  the 
arrangement  of  rooms  in  the  (  House  and  Home  Papers/ 


WHAT   ARE    THE    SOURCES   OF   BEAUTY   IN   DRESS      405 

I  criticised  some  apartments  wherein  were  many  showy 
articles  of  furniture,  and  much  expense  had  been  incurred, 
because,  with  all  this,  there  was  no  unity  of  result.  The 
carpet  was  costly,  and  in  itself  handsome ;  the  paper  was 
also  in  itself  handsome  and  costly ;  the  tables  and  chairs 
also  in  themselves  very  elegant ;  and  yet,  owing  to  a  want 
of  any  unity  of  idea,  any  grand  harmonizing  tint  of  color, 
or  method  of  arrangement,  the  rooms  had  a  jumbled,  con 
fused  air,  and  nothing  about  them  seemed  particularly 
pretty  or  effective.  I  instanced  rooms  where  thousands  of 
dollars  had  been  spent,  which,  because  of  this  defect,  never 
excited  admiration  ;  and  others  in  which  the  furniture  was 
of  the  cheapest  description,  but  which  always  gave  imme 
diate  and  universal  pleasure.  The  same  rule  holds  good  in 
dress.  As  in  every  apartment,  so  in  every  toilet,  there 
should  be  one  ground-tone  or  dominant  color,  which  should 
rule  all  the  others,  and  there  should  be  a  general  style  of 
idea  to  which  everything  should  be  subjected. 

"  We  may  illustrate  the  effect  of  this  principle  in  a  very 
familiar  case.  It  is  generally  conceded  that  the  majority 
of  women  look  better  in  mourning  than  they  do  in  their 
ordinary  apparel ;  a  comparatively  plain  person  looks  almost 
handsome  in  simple  black.  ISTow  why  is  this  ?  Simply 
because  mourning  requires  a  severe  uniformity  of  color  and 
idea,  and  forbids  the  display  of  that  variety  of  colors  and 
objects  which  go  to  make  up  the  ordinary  female  costume, 
and  which  very  few  women  have  such  skill  in  using  as  to 
produce  really  beautiful  effects. 

"  Very  similar  results  have  been  attained  by  the  Quaker 
costume,  which,  in  spite  of  the  quaint  severity  of  the  forms 
to  which  it  adhered,  has  always  had  a  remarkable  degree  of 
becomingness,  because  of  its  restriction  to  a  few  simple  colors 
and  to  the  absence  of  distracting  ornament. 

"But  the  same  effect  which  is  produced  in  mourning  or 
the  Quaker  costume  may  be  preserved  in  a  style  of  dress 


406  THE   CHIMNEY-CORNER 

admitting  color  and  ornamentation.  A  dress  may  have  the 
richest  fullness  of  color,  and  still  the  tints  may  be  so  chas 
tened  and  subdued  as  to  produce  the  impression  of  a  severe 
simplicity.  Suppose,  for  example,  a  golden-haired  blonde 
chooses  for  the  ground-tone  of  her  toilet  a  deep  shade  of 
purple,  such  as  affords  a  good  background  for  the  hair  and 
complexion.  The  larger  draperies  of  the  costume  being  of 
this  color,  the  bonnet  may  be  of  a  lighter  shade  of  the  same, 
ornamented  with  lilac  hyacinths,  shading  insensibly  towards 
rose-color.  The  effect  of  such  a  costume  is  simple,  even 
though  there  be  much  ornament,  because  it  is  ornament 
artistically  disposed  towards  a  general  result. 

"  A  dark  shade  of  green  being  chosen  as  the  ground-tone 
of  a  dress,  the  whole  costume  may,  in  like  manner,  be 
worked  up  through  lighter  and  brighter  shades  of  green,  in 
which  rose-colored  flowers  may  appear  with  the  same  im 
pression  of  simple  appropriateness  that  is  made  by  the  pink 
blossom  over  the  green  leaves  of  a  rose.  There  have  been 
times  in  France  when  the  study  of  color  produced  artistic 
effects  in  costume  worthy  of  attention,  and  resulted  in  styles 
of  dress  of  real  beauty.  But  the  present  corrupted  state  of 
morals  there  has  introduced  a  corrupt  taste  in  dress  ;  and  it 
is  worthy  of  thought  that  the  decline  of  moral  purity  in 
society  is  often  marked  by  the  deterioration  of  the  sense  of 
artistic  beauty.  Corrupt  and  dissipated  social  epochs  pro 
duce  corrupt  styles  of  architecture  and  corrupt  styles  of 
drawing  and  painting,  as  might  easily  be  illustrated  by  the 
history  of  art.  When  the  leaders  of  society  have  blunted 
their  finer  perceptions  by  dissipation  and  immorality,  they 
are  incapable  of  feeling  the  beauties  which  come  from  deli 
cate  concords  and  truly  artistic  combinations.  They  verge 
towards  barbarism,  and  require  things  that  are  strange,  odd, 
dazzling,  and  peculiar  to  captivate  their  jaded  senses.  Such 
we  take  to  be  the  condition  of  Parisian  society  now.  The 
tone  of  it  is  given  by  women  who  are  essentially  impudent 


WHAT   ARE   THE   SOURCES   OF   BEAUTY   IN   DRESS      407 

and  vulgar,  who  override  and  overrule,  by  the  mere  brute 
force  of  opulence  and  luxury,  women  of  finer  natures  and 
moral  tone.  The  court  of  France  is  a  court  of  adventurers, 
of  parvenus ;  and  the  palaces,  the  toilets,  the  equipage,  the 
entertainments,  of  the  mistresses  outshine  those  of  the  law 
ful  wives.  Hence  comes  a  style  of  dress  which  is  in  itself 
vulgar,  ostentatious,  pretentious,  without  simplicity,  without 
unity,  seeking  to  dazzle  by  strange  combinations  and  daring 
contrasts. 

"Now,  when  the  fashions  emanating  from  such  a  state 
of  society  come  to  our  country,  where  it  has  been  too  much 
the  habit  to  put  on  and  wear,  without  dispute  and  without 
inquiry,  any  or  every  thing  that  France  sends,  the  results 
produced  are  often  things  to  make  one  wonder.  A  respec 
table  man,  sitting  quietly  in  church  or  other  public  assembly, 
may  be  pardoned  sometimes  for  indulging  a  silent  sense  of 
the  ridiculous  in  the  contemplation  of  the  forest  of  bonnets 
which  surround  him,  as  he  humbly  asks  himself  the  ques 
tion,  Were  these  meant  to  cover  the  head,  to  defend  it,  or 
to  ornament  it  ?  and,  if  they  are  intended  for  any  of  these 
purposes,  how  ? 

"  I  confess,  to  me  nothing  is  so  surprising  as  the  sort  of 
things  which  well-bred  women  serenely  wear  on  their  heads 
with  the  idea  that  they  are  ornaments.  On  my  right  hand 
sits  a  good-looking  girl  with  a  thing  on  her  head  which 
seems  to  consist  mostly  of  bunches  of  grass,  straws,  with  a 
confusion  of  lace,  in  which  sits  a  draggled  bird,  looking  as 
if  the  cat  had  had  him  before  the  lady.  In  front  of  her 
sits  another,  who  has  a  glittering  confusion  of  beads  swing 
ing  hither  and  thither  from  a  jaunty  little  structure  of  black 
and  red  velvet.  An  anxious-looking  matron  appears  under 
the  high  eaves  of  a  bonnet  with  a  gigantic  crimson  rose 
crushed  down  into  a  mass  of  tangled  hair.  She  is  orna 
mented!  she  has  no  doubt  about  it. 

"  The  fact  is,  that  a  style  of  dress  which  allows  the  use 


408  THE   CHIMNEY-CORNER 

of  everything  in  heaven  above  or  earth  beneath  requires 
more  taste  and  skill  in  disposition  than  falls  to  the  lot  of 
most  of  the  female  sex  to  make  it  even  tolerable.  In  con 
sequence,  the  flowers,  fruits,  grass,  hay,  straw,  oats,  butter 
flies,  beads,  birds,  tinsel,  streamers,  jinglers,  lace,  bugles, 
crape,  which  seem  to  be  appointed  to  form  a  covering  for 
the  female  head,  very  often  appear  in  combinations  so  sin 
gular,  and  the  results,  taken  in  connection  with  all  the  rest 
of  the  costume,  are  such,  that  we  really  think  the  people 
who  usually  assemble  in  a  Quaker  meeting-house  are,  with 
their  entire  absence  of  ornament,  more  becomingly  attired 
than  the  majority  of  our  public  audiences.  For  if  one  con 
siders  his  own  impression  after  having  seen  an  assemblage 
of  women  dressed  in  Quaker  costume,  he  will  find  it  to  be, 
not  of  a  confusion  of  twinkling  finery,  but  of  many  fair, 
sweet  faces,  of  charming,  nice-looking  women,  and  not  of 
articles  of  dress.  Now  this  shows  that  the  severe  dress, 
after  all,  has  better  answered  the  true  purpose  of  dress,  in 
setting  forth  the  woman,  than  our  modern  costume,  where 
the  woman  is  but  one  item  in  a  flying  mass  of  colors  and 
forms,  all  of  which  distract  attention  from  the  faces  they  are 
supposed  to  adorn.  The  dress  of  the  Philadelphia!!  ladies 
has  always  been  celebrated  for  its  elegance  of  effect,  from  the 
fact,  probably,  that  the  early  Quaker  parentage  of  the  city 
formed  the  eye  and  the  taste  of  its  women  for  uniform  and 
simple  styles  of  color,  and  for  purity  and  chastity  of  lines. 
The  most  perfect  toilets  that  have  ever  been  achieved  in 
America  have  probably  been  those  of  the  class  familiarly 
called  the  gay  Quakers,  —  children  of  Quaker  families,  who, 
while  abandoning  the  strict  rules  of  the  sect,  yet  retain  their 
modest  and  severe  reticence,  relying  on  richness  of  material, 
and  soft,  harmonious  coloring,  rather  than  striking  and  daz 
zling  ornament. 

"  The  next  source  of  beauty  in  dress  is  the  impression  of 
truthfulness   and  reality.      It  is  a  well-known  principle   of 


WHAT   ARE   THE   SOUECES   OF   BEAUTY   IN   DRESS      409 

the  fine  arts,  in  all  their  branches,  that  all  shams  and 
mere  pretenses  are  to  be  rejected,  —  a  truth  which  Ruskin 
has  shown  with  the  full  lustre  of  his  many-colored  prose- 
poetry.  As  stucco  pretending  to  be  marble,  and  graining 
pretending  to  be  wood,  are  in  false  taste  in  building,  so 
false  jewelry  and  cheap  fineries  of  every  kind  are  in  bad 
taste  5  so  also  is  powder  instead  of  natural  complexion, 
false  hair  instead  of  real,  and  flesh-painting  of  every  de 
scription.  I  have  even  the  hardihood  to  think  and  assert, 
in  the  presence  of  a  generation  whereof  not  one  woman  in 
twenty  wears  her  own  hair,  that  the  simple,  short-cropped 
locks  of  Rosa  Bonheur  are  in  a  more  beautiful  style  of  hair- 
dressing  than  the  most  elaborate  edifice  of  curls,  rats,  and 
waterfalls  that  is  erected  on  any  fair  head  nowadays." 

"  Oh,  Mr.  Crowfield  !  you  hit  us  all  now/'  cried  several 
voices. 

"  I  know  it,  girls,  —  I  know  it.  I  admit  that  you  are 
all  looking  very  pretty  ;  but  I  do  maintain  that  you  are 
none  of  you  doing  yourselves  justice,  and  that  Nature,  if 
you  would  only  follow  her,  would  do  better  for  you  than 
all  these  elaborations.  A  short  crop  of  your  own  hair,  that 
you  could  brush  out  in  ten  minutes  every  morning,  would 
have  a  more  real,  healthy  beauty  than  the  elaborate  struc 
tures  which  cost  you  hours  of  time,  and  give  you  the  head 
ache  besides.  I  speak  of  the  short  crop,  —  to  put  the  case 
at  the  very  lowest  figure,  — for  many  of  you  have  lovely 
hair  of  different  lengths,  and  susceptible  of  a  variety  of 
arrangements,  if  you  did  not  suppose  yourself  obliged  to 
build  after  a  foreign  pattern,  instead  of  following  out  the 
intentions  of  the  great  Artist  who  made  you. 

"  Is  it  necessary  absolutely  that  every  woman  and  girl 
should  look  exactly  like  every  other  one  ?  There  are  wo 
men  whom  Nature  makes  with  wavy  or  curly  hair :  let 
them  follow  her.  There  are  those  whom  she  makes  with 
soft  and  smooth  locks,  and  with  whom  crinkling  and  crep- 


410  THE   CHIMNEY-CORNER 

ing  is  only  a  sham.  They  look  very  pretty  with  it,  to  be 
sure  ;  but,  after  all,  is  there  but  one  style  of  beauty  ? 
and  might  they  not  look  prettier  in  cultivating  the  style 
which  Nature  seemed  to  have  intended  for  them  ? 

"  As  to  the  floods  of  false  jewelry,  glass  beads,  and  tinsel 
finery  which  seem  to  be  sweeping  over  the  toilet  of  our 
women,  I  must  protest  that  they  are  vulgarizing  the  taste, 
and  having  a  seriously  bad  effect  on  the  delicacy  of  artistic 
perception.  It  is  almost  impossible  to  manage  such  mate 
rial  and  give  any  kind  of  idea  of  neatness  or  purity  ;  for  the 
least  wear  takes  away  their  newness.  And,  of  all  disreputa 
ble  things,  tumbled,  rumpled,  and  tousled  finery  is  the  most 
disreputable.  A  simple  white  muslin,  that  can  come  fresh 
from  the  laundry  every  week,  is,  in  point  of  real  taste, 
worth  any  amount  of  spangled  tissues.  A  plain  straw  bon 
net,  with  only  a  ribbon  across  it,  is  in  reality  in  better  taste 
than  rubbishy  birds  or  butterflies,  or  tinsel  ornaments. 

"  Finally,  girls,  don't  dress  at  haphazard;  for  dress,  so 
far  from  being  a  matter  of  small  consequence,  is  in  reality 
one  of  the  fine  arts,  —  so  far  from  trivial,  that  each  country 
ought  to  have  a  style  of  its  own,  and  each  individual  such  a 
liberty  of  modification  of  the  general  fashion  as  suits  and 
befits  her  person,  her  age,  her  position  in  life,  and  the  kind 
of  character  she  wishes  to  maintain. 

t(  The  only  motive  in  toilet  which  seems  to  have  obtained 
much  as  yet  among  young  girls  is  the  very  vague  impulse 
to  look  '  stylish,'  —  a  desire  which  must  answer  for  more 
vulgar  dressing  than  one  would  wish  to  see.  If  girls  would 
rise  above  this,  and  desire  to  express  by  their  dress  the  at 
tributes  of  true  ladyhood,  nicety  of  eye,  fastidious  neatness, 
purity  of  taste,  truthfulness,  and  sincerity  of  nature,  they 
might  form,  each  one  for  herself,  a  style  having  its  own  in 
dividual  beauty,  incapable  of  ever  becoming  common  and 
vulgar. 

"  A  truly  trained  taste  and  eye  would  enable  a  lady  to 


WHAT   ARE   THE   SOURCES   OF   BEAUTY   IN   DRESS      411 

select  from  the  permitted  forms  of  fashion  such  as  might  be 
modified  to  her  purposes,  always  remembering  that  simpli 
city  is  safe,  that  to  attempt  little  and  succeed  is  better  than 
to  attempt  a  great  deal  and  fail. 

"  And  now,  girls,  I  will  finish  by  reciting  to  you  the 
lines  old  Ben  Jonson  addressed  to  the  pretty  girls  of  his 
time,  which  form  an  appropriate  ending  to  my  remarks  :  — 

"  '  Still  to  be  dressed 
As  you  were  going  to  a  feast ; 
Still  to  be  powdered,  still  perfumed; 
Lady,  it  is  to  be  presumed, 
Though  art's  hid  causes  are  not  found, 
All  is  not  sweet,  all  is  not  sound. 

"  '  Give  me  a  look,  give  me  a  face, 
That  makes  simplicity  a  grace,  — 
Robes  loosely  flowing,  hair  as  free: 
Such  sweet  neglect  more  taketh  me 
Than  all  the  adulteries  of  art, 
That  strike  my  eyes,  but  not  my  heart.'  " 


XI 

THE    CATHEDRAL 

"  I  AM  going  to  build  a  cathedral  one  of  these  days,"  said 
I  to  my  wife,  as  I  sat  looking  at  the  slant  line  of  light  made 
by  the  afternoon  sun  on  our  picture  of  the  Cathedral  of 
Milan. 

"  That  picture  is  one  of  the  most  poetic  things  you  have 
among  your  house  ornaments,"  said  Rudolph.  "  Its  ori 
ginal  is  the  world's  chief  beauty,  —  a  tribute  to  religion 
such  as  Art  never  gave  before  and  never  can  again,  —  as 
much  before  the  Pantheon  as  the  Alps,  with  their  virgin 
snows  and  glittering  pinnacles,  are  above  all  temples  made 
with  hands.  Say  what  you  will,  those  Middle  Ages  that 
you  call  Dark  had  a  glory  of  faith  that  never  will  be  seen 
in  our  days  of  cotton-mills  and  Manchester  prints.  Where 
will  you  marshal  such  an  army  of  saints  as  stands  in  yonder 
white-marble  forest,  visibly  transfigured  and  glorified  in  that 
celestial  Italian  air  ?  Saintship  belonged  to  the  mediaeval 
Church ;  the  heroism  of  religion  has  died  with  it." 

"  That's  just  like  one  of  your  assertions,  Rudolph,"  said 
I.  "You  might  as  well  say  that  Nature  has  never  made 
any  flowers  since  Linnaeus  shut  up  his  herbarium.  We 
have  no  statues  and  pictures  of  modern  saints ;  but  saints 
themselves,  thank  God,  have  never  been  wanting.  '  As  it 
was  in  the  beginning,  is  now,  and  ever  shall  be '  ' 

"  But  what  about  your  cathedral  ?  "  said  my  wife. 

"  Oh  yes  !  —  my  cathedral,  —  yes.  When  my  stocks  in 
cloudland  rise,  I  '11  build  a  cathedral  larger  than  Milan's  ;  and 
the  men,  but  more  particularly  the  women,  thereon,  shall 


THE   CATHEDRAL  413 

be  those  who  have  done  even  more  than  Saint  Paul  tells 
of  in  the  saints  of  old,  who  l  subdued  kingdoms,  wrought 
righteousness,  quenched  the  violence  of  fire,  escaped  the 
edge  of  the  sword,  out  of  weakness  were  made  strong,  waxed 
valiant  in  fight,  turned  to  flight  the  armies  of  the  aliens.' 
I  am  not  now  thinking  of  Florence  Nightingale,  nor  of  the 
host  of  women  who  have  been  walking  worthily  in  her  foot 
steps,  but  of  nameless  saints  of  more  retired  and  private 
state,  —  domestic  saints,  who  have  tended  children  not  their 
own  through  whooping-cough  and  measles,  and  borne  the 
unruly  whims  of  fretful  invalids,  —  stocking-darning,  shirt- 
making  saints,  —  saints  who  wore  no  visible  garment  of 
haircloth,  bound  themselves  with  no  belts  of  spikes  and 
nails,  yet  in  their  inmost  souls  were  marked  and  seared  with 
the  red  cross  of  a  lifelong  self-sacrifice,  —  saints  for  whom 
the  mystical  terms  self-annihilation  and  self-crucifixion  had 
a  real  and  tangible  meaning,  all  the  stronger  because  their 
daily  death  was  marked  by  no  outward  sign.  No  mys 
tical  rites  consecrated  them ;  no  organ-music  burst  forth  in 
solemn  rapture  to  welcome  them  ;  no  habit  of  their  order 
proclaimed  to  themselves  and  the  world  that  they  were  the 
elect  of  Christ,  the  brides  of  another  life  :  but  small,  eating 
cares,  daily  prosaic  duties,  the  petty  friction  of  all  the  little 
ness  and  all  the  inglorious  annoyances  of  every  day,  were 
as  dust  that  hid  the  beauty  and  grandeur  of  their  calling 
even  from  themselves  ;  they  walked  unknown  even  to  their 
households,  unknown  even  to  their  own  souls ;  but  when 
the  Lord  comes  to  build  his  New  Jerusalem,  we  shall  find 
many  a  white  stone  with  a  new  name  thereon,  and  the  rec 
ord  of  deeds  and  words  which  only  He  that  seeth  in  secret 
knows.  Many  a  humble  soul  will  be  amazed  to  find  that 
the  seed  it  sowed  in  such  weakness,  in  the  dust  of  daily 
life,  has  blossomed  into  immortal  flowers  under  the  eye  of 
the  Lord. 

"  When  I  build  my  cathedral,  that  woman,"  I  said,  point- 


414  THE   CHIMNEY-CORNER 

ing  to  a  small  painting  by  the  fire,  "  shall  be  among  the 
first  of  my  saints.  You  see  her  there,  in  an  every-day  dress- 
cap  with  a  mortal  thread-lace  border,  and  with  a  very  or 
dinary  worked  collar,  fastened  by  a  visible  and  terrestrial 
breastpin.  There  is  no  nimbus  around  her  head,  no  sign 
of  the  cross  upon  her  breast ;  her  hands  are  clasped  on  no 
crucifix  or  rosary.  Her  clear,  keen,  hazel  eye  looks  as  if  it 
could  sparkle  with  mirthfulness,  as  in  fact  it  could  ;  there 
are  in  it  both  the  subtile  flash  of  wit  and  the  subdued  light 
of  humor ;  and  though  the  whole  face  smiles,  it  has  yet  a 
certain  decisive  firmness  that  speaks  the  soul  immutable  in 
good.  That  woman  shall  be  the  first  saint  in  my  cathedral, 
and  her  name  shall  be  recorded  as  Saint  Esther.  What 
makes  saintliness  in  my  view,  as  distinguished  from  ordi 
nary  goodness,  is  a  certain  quality  of  magnanimity  and  great 
ness  of  soul  that  brings  life  within  the  circle  of  the  heroic. 
To  be  really  great  in  little  things,  to  be  truly  noble  and 
heroic  in  the  insipid  details  of  every-day  life,  is  a  virtue  so 
rare  as  to  be  worthy  of  canonization,  —  and  this  virtue  was 
hers.  New  England  Puritanism  must  be  credited  with  the 
making  of  many  such  women.  Severe  as  was  her  discipline, 
and  harsh  as  seems  now  her  rule,  we  have  yet  to  see  whether 
women  will  be  born  of  modern  systems  of  tolerance  and  in 
dulgence  equal  to  those  grand  ones  of  the  olden  times  whose 
places  now  know  them  no  more.  The  inconceivable  aus 
terity  and  solemnity  with  which  Puritanism  invested  this 
mortal  life,  the  awful  grandeur  of  the  themes  which  it  made 
household  words,  the  sublimity  of  the  issues  which  it  hung 
upon  the  commonest  acts  of  our  earthly  existence,  created 
characters  of  more  than  Roman  strength  and  greatness  ;  and 
the  good  men  and  women  of  Puritan  training  excelled  the 
saints  of  the  Middle  Ages,  as  a  soul  fully  developed  intel 
lectually,  educated  to  closest  thought,  and  exercised  in  rea 
soning,  is  superior  to  a  soul  great  merely  through  impulse 
and  sentiment. 


THE   CATHEDRAL  415 

"  My  earliest  recollections  of  Aunt  Esther,  for  so  our 
saint  was  known,  were  of  a  bright-faced,  cheerful,  witty, 
quick-moving  little  middle-aged  person,  who  came  into  our 
house  like  a  good  fairy  whenever  there  was  a  call  of  sick 
ness  or  trouble.  If  an  accident  happened  in  the  great 
roystering  family  of  eight  or  ten  children  (and  when  was 
not  something  happening  to  some  of  us  ?),  and  we  were 
shut  up  in  a  sick-room,  then  duly  as  daylight  came  the 
quick  step  and  cheerful  face  of  Aunt  Esther,  —  not  solemn 
and  lugubrious  like  so  many  sick-room  nurses,  but  with  a 
never  failing  flow  of  wit  and  story  that  could  beguile  even 
the  most  doleful  into  laughing  at  their  own  afflictions.  I 
remember  how  a  fit  of  the  quinsy  —  most  tedious  of  all 
sicknesses  to  an  active  child  —  was  gilded  and  glorified  into 
quite  a  fete  by  my  having  Aunt  Esther  all  to  myself  for 
two  whole  days,  with  nothing  to  do  but  amuse  me.  She 
charmed  me  into  smiling  at  the  very  pangs  which  had  made 
me  weep  before,  and  of  which  she  described  her  own  ex 
periences  in  a  manner  to  make  me  think  that,  after  all, 
the  quinsy  was  something  with  an  amusing  side  to  it.  Her 
knowledge  of  all  sorts  of  medicines,  gargles,  and  alleviatives, 
her  perfect  familiarity  with  every  canon  and  law  of  good 
nursing  and  tending,  was  something  that  could  only  have 
come  from  long  experience  in  those  good  old  New  England 
days  when  there  were  no  nurses  recognized  as  a  class  in  the 
land,  but  when  watching  and  the  care  of  the  sick  were 
among  those  offices  of  Christian  life  which  the  families  of  a 
neighborhood  reciprocally  rendered  each  other.  Even  from 
early  youth  she  had  obeyed  a  special  vocation  as  sister 
of  charity  in  many  a  sick-room,  and,  with  the  usual  keen 
intelligence  of  New  England,  had  widened  her  powers  of 
doing  good  by  the  reading  of  medical  and  physiological 
works.  Her  legends  of  nursing  in  those  days  of  long  typhus 
fever  and  other  formidable  and  protracted  forms  of  disease 
were  to  our  ears  quite  wonderful,  and  we  regarded  her  as  a 


41 G  THE    CHIMNEY-CORNER 

sort  of  patron  saint  of  the  sick-room.  She  seemed  always  so 
cheerful,  so  bright,  and  so  devoted,  that  it  never  occurred  to 
us  youngsters  to  doubt  that  she  enjoyed,  above  all  things, 
being  with  us,  waiting  on  us  all  day,  watching  over  us  by 
night,  telling  us  stories,  and  answering,  in  her  lively  and 
always  amusing  and  instructive  way,  that  incessant  fire  of 
questions  with  which  a  child  persecutes  a  grown  person. 

"  Sometimes,  as  a  reward  of  goodness,  we  were  allowed 
to  visit  her  in  her  own  room,  a  neat  little  parlor  in  the 
neighborhood,  whose  windows  looked  down  a  hillside  on 
one  hand,  under  the  boughs  of  an  apple  -  orchard,  where 
daisies  and  clover  and  bobolinks  always  abounded  in  summer 
time ;  and  on  the  other  faced  the  street,  with  a  green  yard 
flanked  by  one  or  two  shady  elms  between  them  and  the 
street.  No  nun's  cell  was  ever  neater,  no  bee's  cell  ever 
more  compactly  and  carefully  arranged ;  and  to  us,  familiar 
with  the  confusion  of  a  great  family  of  little  ones,  there 
was  always  something  inviting  about  its  stillness,  its  perfect 
order,  and  the  air  of  thoughtful  repose  that  breathed  over 
it.  She  lived  there  in  perfect  independence,  doing,  as  it 
was  her  delight  to  do,  every  office  of  life  for  herself.  She 
was  her  own  cook,  her  own  parlor  and  chamber  maid,  her 
own  laundress ;  and  very  faultless  the  cooking,  washing, 
ironing,  and  care  of  her  premises  were.  A  slice  of  Aunt 
Esther's  gingerbread,  one  of  Aunt  Esther's  cookies,  had,  we 
all  believed,  certain  magical  properties  such  as  belonged  to 
no  other  mortal  mixture.  Even  a  handful  of  walnuts  that 
were  brought  from  the  depths  of  her  mysterious  closet  had 
virtues  in  our  eyes  such  as  no  other  walnuts  could  approach. 
The  little  shelf  of  books  that  hung  suspended  by  cords 
against  her  wall  was  sacred  in  our  regard ;  the  volumes 
were  like  no  other  books  ;  and  we  supposed  that  she  derived 
from  them  those  stores  of  knowledge  on  all  subjects  which 
she  unconsciously  dispensed  among  us,  —  for  she  was 
always  telling  us  something  of  metals,  or  minerals,  or  gems, 


THE    CATHEDRAL  417 

or  plants,  or  animals,  which  awakened  our  curiosity,  stimu 
lated  our  inquiries,  and,  above  all,  led  us  to  wonder  where 
she  had  learned  it  all.  Even  the  slight  restrictions  which 
her  neat  habits  imposed  on  our  breezy  and  turbulent  natures 
I  seemed  all  quite  graceful  and  becoming.  It  was  right,  in  our 
eyes,  to  cleanse  our  shoes  on  scraper  and  mat  with  extra  dili 
gence,  and  then  to  place  a  couple  of  chips  under  the  heels 
of  our  boots  when  we  essayed  to  dry  our  feet  at  her  spotless 
hearth.  We  marveled  to  see  our  own  faces  reflected  in  a 
thousand  smiles  and  winks  from  her  bright  brass  andirons, 
—  such  andirons  we  thought  were  seen  on  earth  in  no  other 
place,  —  and  a  pair  of  radiant  brass  candlesticks,  that  illus 
trated  the  mantelpiece,  were  viewed  with  no  less  respect. 

"  Aunt  Esther's  cat  was  a  model  for  all  cats,  —  so  sleek, 
so  intelligent,  so  decorous  and  well-trained,  always  occupying 
exactly  her  own  cushion  by  the  fire,  and  never  transgressing 
in  one  iota  the  proprieties  belonging  to  a  cat  of  good  breed 
ing.  She  shared  our  affections  with  her  mistress,  and  we 
were  allowed  as  a  great  favor  and  privilege,  now  and  then, 
to  hold  the  favorite  on  our  knees,  and  stroke  her  satin  coat 
to  a  smoother  gloss. 

"  But  it  was  not  for  cats  alone  that  she  had  attractions. 
She  was  in  sympathy  and  fellowship  with  everything  that 
moved  and  lived  ;  knew  every  bird  and  beast  with  a  friendly 
acquaintanceship.  The  squirrels  that  inhabited  the  trees  in 
the  front  yard  were  won  in  time  by  her  blandishments  to 
come  and  perch  on  her  window-sills,  and  thence,  by  trains 
of  nuts  adroitly  laid,  to  disport  themselves  on  the  shining 
cherry  tea-table  that  stood  between  the  windows ;  and  we 
youngsters  used  to  sit  entranced  with  delight  as  they  gam 
boled  and  waved  their  feathery  tails  in  frolicsome  security, 
eating  rations  of  gingerbread  and  bits  of  seedcake  with  as 
good  a  relish  as  any  child  among  us. 

"  The  habits,  the  rights,  the  wrongs,  the  wants,  and  the 
sufferings  of  the  animal  creation  formed  the  subject  of  many 


418  THE   CHIMNEY-CORNER 

an  interesting  conversation  with  her ;  and  we  boys,  with  the 
natural  male  instinct  of  hunting,  trapping,  and  pursuing, 
were  often  made  to  pause  in  our  career,  remembering  her 
pleas  for  the  dumb  things  which  could  not  speak  for  them 
selves. 

"  Her  little  hermitage  was  the  favorite  resort  of  numerous 
friends.  Many  of  the  young  girls  who  attended  the  village 
academy  made  her  acquaintance,  and  nothing  delighted  her 
more  than  that  they  should  come  there  and  read  to  her  the 
books  they  were  studying,  when  her  superior  and  wide  in 
formation  enabled  her  to  light  up  and  explain  much  that 
was  not  clear  to  the  immature  students. 

"  In  her  shady  retirement,  too,  she  was  a  sort  of  Egeria 
to  certain  men  of  genius,  who  came  to  read  to  her  their 
writings,  to  consult  her  in  their  arguments,  and  to  discuss 
with  her  the  literature  and  politics  of  the  day,  —  through 
all  which  her  mind  moved  with  an  equal  step,  yet  with  a 
sprightliness  and  vivacity  peculiarly  feminine. 

"  Her  memory  was  remarkably  retentive,  not  only  of  the 
contents  of  books,  but  of  all  that  great  outlying  fund  of 
anecdote  and  story  which  the  quaint  and  earnest  New  Eng 
land  life  always  supplied.  There  were  pictures  of  peculiar 
characters,  legends  of  true  events  stranger  than  romance,  all 
stored  in  the  cabinets  of  her  mind  ;  and  these  came  from  her 
lips  with  the  greater  force  because  the  precision  of  her  mem 
ory  enabled  her  to  authenticate  them  with  name,  date,  and 
circumstances  of  vivid  reality.  From  that  shadowy  line  of 
incidents  which  marks  the  twilight  boundary  between  the 
spiritual  world  and  the  present  life  she  drew  legends  of 
peculiar  clearness,  but  invested  with  the  mysterious  charm 
which  always  dwells  in  that  uncertain  region  ;  and  the  shrewd 
flash  of  her  eye,  and  the  keen,  bright  smile  with  which  she 
answered  the  wondering  question,  '  What  do  you  suppose  it 
was  ?  '  or,  '  What  could  it  have  been  ?  '  showed  how  evenly 
rationalism  in  her  mind  kept  pace  with  romance. 


THE   CATHEDKAL  419 

"  The  retired  room  in  which  she  thus  read,  studied, 
thought,  and  surveyed  from  afar  the  whole  world  of  science 
and  literature,  and  in  which  she  received  friends  and  enter 
tained  children,  was  perhaps  the  dearest  and  freshest  spot 
to  her  in  the  world.  There  came  a  time,  however,  when 
the  neat  little  independent  establishment  was  given  up,  and 
she  went  to  associate  herself  with  two  of  her  nieces  in  keep 
ing  house  for  a  boarding-school  of  young  girls.  Here  her 
lively  manners  and  her  gracious  interest  in  the  young  made 
her  a  universal  favorite,  though  the  cares  she  assumed  broke 
in  upon  those  habits  of  solitude  and  study  which  formed 
her  delight.  From  the  day  that  she  surrendered  this  inde 
pendency  of  hers,  she  had  never,  for  more  than  a  score  of 
years,  a  home  of  her  own,  but  filled  the  trying  position  of 
an  accessory  in  the  home  of  others.  Leaving  the  boarding- 
school,  she  became  the  helper  of  an  invalid  wife  and  mo 
ther  in  the  early  nursing  and  rearing  of  a  family  of  young 
children,  —  an  office  which  leaves  no  privacy  and  no  leisure. 
Her  bed  was  always  shared  with  some  little  one  ;  her  terri 
tories  were  exposed  to  the  constant  inroads  of  little  patter 
ing  feet ;  and  all  the  various  sicknesses  and  ailments  of 
delicate  childhood  made  absorbing  drafts  upon  her  time. 

"  After  a  while  she  left  New  England  with  the  brother 
to  whose  family  she  devoted  herself.  The  failing  health  of 
the  wife  and  mother  left  more  and  more  the  charge  of  all 
things  in  her  hands ;  servants  were  poor,  and  all  the  appli 
ances  of  living  had  the  rawness  and  inconvenience  which  in 
those  days  attended  Western  life.  It  became  her  fate  to 
supply  all  other  people's  defects  and  deficiencies.  Wherever 
a  hand  failed,  there  must  her  hand  be.  Whenever  a  foot 
faltered,  she  must  step  into  the  ranks.  She  was  the  one 
who  thought  for  and  cared  for  and  toiled  for  all,  yet  made 
never  a  claim  that  any  one  should  care  for  her. 

"  It  was  not  till  late  in  my  life  that  I  became  acquainted 
with  the  deep  interior  sacrifice,  the  constant  self-abnegation, 


420  THE   CHIMNEY-CORNER 

which  all  her  life  involved.  She  was  born  with  a  strong, 
vehement,  impulsive  nature,  —  a  nature  both  proud  and 
sensitive,  —  a  nature  whose  tastes  were  passions,  whose  lik 
ings  and  whose  aversions  were  of  the  most  intense  and  posi 
tive  character.  Devoted  as  she  always  seemed  to  the  mere 
practical  and  material,  she  had  naturally  a  deep  romance 
and  enthusiasm  of  temperament  which  exceeded  all  that  can 
be  written  in  novels.  It  was  chiefly  owing  to  this  that  a 
home  and  a  central  affection  of  her  own  were  never  hers.  In 
her  early  days  of  attractiveness,  none  who  would  have  sought 
her  could  meet  the  high  requirements  of  her  ideality  ;  she 
never  saw  her  hero,  and  so  never  married.  Family  cares, 
the  tending  of  young  children,  she  often  confessed,  were 
peculiarly  irksome  to  her.  She  had  the  head  of  a  student, 
a  passionate  love  for  the  world  of  books.  A  Protestant  con 
vent,  where  she  might  devote  herself  without  interruption 
to  study,  was  her  ideal  of  happiness.  She  had,  too,  the 
keenest  appreciation  of  poetry,  of  music,  of  painting,  and  of 
natural  scenery.  Her  enjoyment  in  any  of  these  things  was 
intensely  vivid  whenever,  by  chance,  a  stray  sunbeam  of  the 
kind  darted  across  the  dusty  path  of  her  life  ;  yet  in  all 
these  her  life  Avas  a  constant  repression.  The  eagerness  with 
which  she  would  listen  to  any  account  from  those  more  for 
tunate  ones  who  had  known  these  things,  showed  how  ar 
dent  a  passion  was  constantly  held  in  check.  A  short  time 
before  her  death,  talking  with  a  friend  who  had  visited 
Switzerland,  she  said,  with  great  feeling  :  '  All  my  life  my 
desire  to  visit  the  beautiful  places  of  this  earth  has  been  so 
intense,  that  I  cannot  but  hope  that  after  my  death  I  shall 
be  permitted  to  go  and  look  at  them.' 

"  The  completeness  of  her  self-discipline  may  be  gathered 
from  the  fact  that  no  child  could  ever  be  brought  to  believe 
she  had  not  a  natural  fondness  for  children,  or  that  she 
found  the  care  of  them  burdensome.  It  was  easy  to  see  that 
she  had  naturally  all  those  particular  habits,  those  minute 


THE   CATHEDRAL  421 

pertinacities  in  respect  to  her  daily  movements  arid  the  ar 
rangement  of  all  her  belongings,  which  would  make  the  med 
dling,  intrusive  demands  of  infancy  and  childhood  peculiarly 
hard  for  her  to  meet.  Yet  never  was  there  a  pair  of  tod 
dling  feet  that  did  not  make  free  with  Aunt  Esther's  room, 
never  a  curly  head  that  did  not  look  up,  in  confiding  assur 
ance  of  a  welcome  smile,  to  her  bright  eyes.  The  inconsid 
erate  and  never  ceasing  requirements  of  children  and  invalids 
never  drew  from  her  other  than  a  cheerful  response ;  and 
to  my  mind  there  is  more  saintship  in  this  than  in  the  pri 
vate  wearing  of  any  number  of  haircloth  shirts  or  belts  lined 
with  spikes. 

"  In  a  large  family  of  careless,  noisy  children  there  will 
be  constant  losing  of  thimbles  and  needles  and  scissors ;  but 
Aunt  Esther  was  always  ready,  without  reproach,  to  help 
the  careless  and  the  luckless.  Her  things,  so  well  kept  and 
so  treasured,  she  was  willing  to  lend,  with  many  a  caution 
and  injunction,  it  is  true,  but  also  with  a  relish  of  right 
good  will.  And,  to  do  us  justice,  we  generally  felt  the 
sacredness  of  the  trust,  and  were  more  careful  of  her  things 
than  of  our  own.  If  a  shade  of  sewing-silk  were  wanting, 
or  a  choice  button,  or  a  bit  of  braid  or  tape,  Aunt  Esther 
cheerfully  volunteered  something  from  her  well-kept  stores, 
not  regarding  the  trouble  she  made  herself  in  seeking  the 
key,  unlocking  the  drawer,  and  searching  out  in  bag  or  par 
cel  just  the  treasure  demanded.  Never  was  more  perfect 
precision,  or  more  perfect  readiness  to  accommodate  others. 

<c  Her  little  income,  scarcely  reaching  a  hundred  dollars 
yearly,  was  disposed  of  with  a  generosity  worthy  a  fortune. 
One  tenth  was  sacredly  devoted  to  charity,  and  a  still 
further  sum  laid  by  every  year  for  presents  to  friends.  No 
Christmas  or  New  Year  ever  came  round  that  Aunt  Esther, 
out  of  this  very  tiny  fund,  did  not  find  something  for  chil 
dren  and  servants.  Her  gifts  were  trifling  in  value,  but 
well  timed,  —  a  ball  of  thread-wax,  a  paper  of  pins,  a  pin- 


422  ,     THE    CHIMNEY-CORNER 

cushion,  —  something  generally  so  well  chosen  as  to  show 
that  she  had  been  running  over  our  needs,  and  noting  what 
to  give.  She  was  no  less  gracious  as  receiver  than  as  giver. 
The  little  articles  that  we  made  for  her,  or  the  small  presents 
that  we  could  buy  out  of  our  childish  resources,  she  always 
declared  were  exactly  what  she  needed  ;  and  she  delighted  us 
by  the  care  she  took  of  them  and  the  value  she  set  upon  them. 

"  Her  income  was  a  source  of  the  greatest  pleasure  to  her, 
as  maintaining  an  independence  without  which  she  could 
not  have  been  happy.  Though  she  constantly  gave  to 
every  family  in  which  she  lived  services  which  no  money 
could  repay,  it  would  have  been  the  greatest  trial  to  her 
not  to  be  able  to  provide  for  herself.  Her  dress,  always 
that  of  a  true  gentlewoman,  —  refined,  quiet,  and  neat,  — 
was  bought  from  this  restricted  sum,  and  her  small  traveling 
expenses  were  paid  out  of  it.  She  abhorred  anything  false 
or  flashy  :  her  caps  were  trimmed  with  real  thread  lace,  and 
her  silk  dresses  were  of  the  best  quality,  perfectly  well  made 
and  kept ;  and,  after  all,  a  little  sum  always  remained  over 
in  her  hands  for  unforeseen  exigencies. 

"  This  love  of  independence  was  one  of  the  strongest 
features  of  her  life,  and  Ave  often  playfully  told  her  that 
her  only  form  of  selfishness  was  the  monopoly  of  saintship, 
—  that  she  who  gave  so  much  was  not  willing  to  allow 
others  to  give  to  her;  that  she  who  made  herself  servant  of 
all  was  not  willing  to  allow  others  to  serve  her. 

"  Among  the  trials  of  her  life  must  be  reckoned  much  ill 
health,  borne,  however,  with  such  heroic  patience  that  it  was 
not  easy  to  say  when  the  hand  of  pain  was  laid  upon  her.  She 
inherited,  too,  a  tendency  to  depression  of  spirits,  which  at 
times  increased  to  a  morbid  and  distressing  gloom.  Few 
knew  or  suspected  these  sufferings,  so  completely  had  she 
learned  to  suppress  every  outward  manifestation  that  might 
interfere  with  the  happiness  of  others.  In  her  hours  of 
depression  she  resolutely  forbore  to  sadden  the  lives  of 


THE   CATHEDRAL  423 

those  around  her  with  her  own  melancholy,  and  often  her 
darkest  moods  were  so  lighted  up  and  adorned  with  an  out 
side  show  of  wit  and  humor,  that  those  who  had  known  her 
intimately  were  astonished  to  hear  that  she  had  ever  been 
subject  to  depression. 

"  Her  truthfulness  of  nature  amounted  almost  to  super 
stition.  Prom  her  promise  once  given  she  felt  no  change 
of  purpose  could  absolve  her  ;  and  therefore  rarely  would 
she  give  it  absolutely,  for  she  could  not  alter  the  thing  that 
had  gone  forth  from  her  lips.  Our  belief  in  the  certainty  of 
her  fulfilling  her  word  was  like  our  belief  in  the  immutabil 
ity  of  the  laws  of  nature.  Whoever  asked  her  got  of  her 
the  absolute  truth  on  every  subject,  and,  when  she  had  no 
good  thing  to  say,  her  silence  was  often  truly  awful.  When 
anything  mean  or  ungenerous  was  brought  to  her  knowledge, 
she  would  close  her  lips  resolutely ;  but  the  flash  in  her 
eyes  showed  what  she  would  speak  were  speech  permitted. 
In  her  last  days  she  spoke  to  a  friend  of  what  she  had 
suffered  from  the  strength  of  her  personal  antipathies.  '  I 
thank  God,'  she  said,  ( that  I  believe  at  last  I  have  over 
come  all  that  too,  and  that  there  has  not  been,  for  some 
years,  any  human  being  toward  whom  I  have  felt  a  move 
ment  of  dislike.' 

"  The  last  year  of  her  life  was  a  constant  discipline  of 
unceasing  pain,  borne  with  that  fortitude  which  could  make 
her  an  entertaining  and  interesting  companion  even  while 
the  sweat  of  mortal  agony  was  starting  from  her  brow. 
Her  own  room  she  kept  as  a  last  asylum,  to  which  she 
would  silently  retreat  when  the  torture  became  too  intense 
for  the  repression  of  society,  and  there  alone,  with  closed 
doors,  she  wrestled  with  her  agony.  The  stubborn  inde 
pendence  of  her  nature  took  refuge  in  this  final  fastness,  and 
she  prayed  only  that  she  might  go  down  to  death  with  the 
full  ability  to  steady  herself  all  the  way,  needing  the  help 
of  110  other  hand. 


424  THE   CHIMNEY-CORNER 

"  The  ultimate  struggle  of  earthly  feeling  came  when  this 
proud  self-reliance  was  forced  to  give  way,  and  she  was 
obliged  to  leave  herself  helpless  in  the  hands  of  others. 
'  God  requires  that  I  should  give  up  my  last  form  of  self-will,' 
she  said ;  '  now  I  have  resigned  this,  perhaps  He  will  let 
me  go  home.' 

"In  a  good  old  age,  Death,  the  friend,  came  and  opened 
the  door  of  this  mortal  state,  and  a  great  soul,  that  had 
served  a  long  appenticeship  to  little  things,  went  forth  into 
the  joy  of  its  Lord  ;  a  life  of  self-sacrifice  and  self-abnega 
tion  passed  into  a  life  of  endless  rest." 

"  But,"  said  Rudolph,  "  I  rebel  at  this  life  of  self-abne 
gation  and  self-sacrifice.  I  do  not  think  it  the  duty  of  noble 
women,  who  have  beautiful  natures  and  enlarged  and  culti 
vated  tastes,  to  make  themselves  the  slaves  of  the  sick-room 
and  nursery." 

"  Such  was  not  the  teaching  of  our  New  England  faith," 
said  I.  "  Absolute  unselfishness,  —  the  death  of  self,  — 
such  were  its  teachings,  and  such  as  Esther's  the  characters 
it  made.  '  Do  the  duty  nearest  thee  '  was  the  only  mes 
sage  it  gave  to  '  women  with  a  mission  ;  '  and  from  duty 
to  duty,  from  one  self-denial  to  another,  they  rose  to  a 
majesty  of  moral  strength  impossible  to  any  form  of  mere 
self-indulgence.  It  is  of  souls  thus  sculptured  and  chis 
eled  by  self-denial  and  self-discipline  that  the  living  tem 
ple  of  the  perfect  hereafter  is  to  be  built.  The  pain  of  the 
discipline  is  short,  but  the  glory  of  the  fruition  is  eternal." 


XII 

THE  NEW  YEAR 

[1865.] 

HERE  comes  the  First  of  January,  Eighteen  Hundred 
and  Sixty-Five,  and  we  are  all  settled  comfortably  into  our 
winter  places,  with  our  winter  surroundings  and  belongings  ; 
all  cracks  and  openings  are  calked  and  listed,  the  double 
windows  are  in,  the  furnace  dragon  in  the  cellar  is  ruddy 
and  in  good  liking,  sending  up  his  warming  respirations 
through  every  pipe  and  register  in  the  house  ;  and  yet, 
though  an  artificial  summer  reigns  everywhere,  like  bees 
we  have  our  swarming  place,  —  in  my  library.  There  is  my 
chimney-corner,  and  my  table  permanently  established  on 
one  side  of  the  hearth  j  and  each  of  the  female  genus  has,  so 
to  speak,  pitched  her  own  winter  tent  within  sight  of  the 
blaze  of  my  camp-fire.  I  discerned  to-day  that  Jenny  had 
surreptitiously  appropriated  one  of  the  drawers  of  my  study- 
table  to  knitting-needles  and  worsted ;  and  wicker  work- 
baskets  and  stands  of  various  heights  and  sizes  seem  to  be 
planted  here  and  there  for  permanence  among  the  bookcases. 
The  canary-bird  has  a  sunny  window,  and  the  plants  spread 
out  their  leaves  and  unfold  their  blossoms  as  if  there  were 
no  ice  and  snow  in  the  street,  and  Rover  makes  a  hearth 
rug  of  himself  in  winking  satisfaction  in  front  of  my  fire, 
except  when  Jenny  is  taken  with  a  fit  of  discipline,  when 
he  beats  a  retreat,  and  secretes  himself  under  my  table. 

Peaceable,  ah,  how  peaceable,  home  and  quiet  and 
warmth  in  winter  !  And  how,  when  we,  hear  the  wind 


426  THE   CHIMNEY-CORNER 

whistle,  we  think  of  you,  0  our  brave  brothers,  our  saviors 
and  defenders,  who  for  our  sake  have  no  home  but  the 
muddy  camp,  the  hard  pillow  of  the  barrack,  the  weary 
march,  the  uncertain  fare, — you,  the  rank  and  file,  the 
thousand  unnoticed  ones,  who  have  left  warm  fires,  dear 
wives,  loving  little  children,  without  even  the  hope  of  glory 
or  fame,  —  without  even  'the  hope  of  doing  anything  re 
markable  or  perceptible  for  the  cause  you  love,  —  resigned 
only  to  fill  the  ditch  or  bridge  the  chasm  over  which  your 
country  shall  walk  to  peace  and  joy  !  Good  men  and 
true,  brave  unknown  hearts,  we  salute  you,  and  feel  that 
we,  in  our  soft  peace  and  security,  are  not  worthy  of  you  ! 
When  we  think  of  you,  our  simple  comforts  seem  lux 
uries  all  too  good  for  us,  who  give  so  little  when  you  give 
all! 

But  there  are  others  to  whom  from  our  bright  homes, 
our  cheerful  firesides,  we  would  fain  say  a  word,  if  we 
dared. 

Think  of  a  mother  receiving  a  letter  with  such  a  passage 
as  this  in  it  !  It  is  extracted  from  one  we  have  just  seen, 
written  by  a  private  in  the  army  of  Sheridan,  describing 
the  death  of  a  private.  "  He  fell  instantly,  gave  a  peculiar 
smile  and  look,  and  then  closed  his  eyes.  We  laid  him 
down  gently  at  the  foot  of  a  large  tree.  I  crossed  his 
hands  over  his  breast,  closed  his  eyelids  down,  but  the 
smile  was  still  on  his  face.  I  wrapt  him  in  his  tent,  spread 
my  pocket-handkerchief  over  his  face,  wrote  his  name  on  a 
piece  of  paper,  and  pinned  it  on  his  breast,  and  there  we 
left  him  :  we  could  not  find  pick  or  shovel  to  dig  a  grave." 
There  it  is  !  —  a  history  that  is  multiplying  itself  by  hun 
dreds  daily,  the  substance  of  what  has  come  to  so  many 
homes,  and  must  come  to  so  many  more  before  the  great 
price  of  our  ransom  is  paid  ! 

What  can  we  say  to  you,  in  those  many,  many  homes 
where  the  light  has  gone  out  forever  ?  —  you,  0  fathers, 


THE    NEW   YEAR  427 

mothers,  wives,  sisters,  haunted  by  a  name  that  has  ceased 
to  be  spoken  on  earth,  —  you,  for  whom  there  is  no  more 
news  from  the  camp,  no  more  reading  of  lists,  no  more 
tracing  of  maps,  no  more  letters,  but  only  a  blank,  dead 
silence  !  The  battlecry  goes  on,  but  for  you  it  is  passed 
by  !  the  victory  comes,  but,  oh,  never  more  to  bring  him 
back  to  you  !  your  offering  to  this  great  cause  has  been 
made,  and  been  taken  ;  you  have  thrown  into  it  all  your 
living,  even  all  that  you  had,  and  from  henceforth  your 
house  is  left  unto  you  desolate  !  0  ye  watchers  of  the 
cross,  ye  waiters  by  the  sepulchre,  what  can  be  said  to  you  ? 
We  could  almost  extinguish  our  own  home-fires,  that  seem 
too  bright  when  we  think  of  your  darkness  ;  the  laugh 
dies  on  our  lip,  the  lamp  burns  dim  through  our  tears,  and 
we  seem  scarcely  worthy  to  speak  words  of  comfort,  lest  we 
seem  as  those  who  mock  a  grief  they  cannot  know. 

But  is  there  no  consolation  ?  Is  it  nothing  to  have  had 
such  a  treasure  to  give,  and  to  have  given  it  freely  for  the 
noblest  cause  for  which  ever  battle  was  set, — for  the  sal 
vation  of  your  country,  for  the  freedom  of  all  mankind  ? 
Had  he  died  a  fruitless  death,  in  the  track  of  common  life, 
blasted  by  fever,  smitten  or  rent  by  crushing  accident,  then 
might  his  most  precious  life  seem  to  be  as  water  spilled 
upon  the  ground ;  but  now  it  has  been  given  for  a  cause 
and  a  purpose  worthy  even  the  anguish  of  your  loss  and 
sacrifice.  He  has  been  counted  worthy  to  be  numbered 
with  those  who  stood  with  precious  incense  between  the  liv 
ing  and  the  dead,  that  the  plague  which  was  consuming  us 
might  be  stayed.  The  blood  of  these  young  martyrs  shall 
be  the  seed  of  the  future  church  of  liberty,  and  from  every 
drop  shall  spring  up  flowers  of  healing.  0  widow  !  0 
mother !  blessed  among  bereaved  women  !  there  remains  to 
you  a  treasure  that  belongs  not  to  those  who  have  lost  in 
any  other  wise,  —  the  power  to  say,  "  He  died  for  his  coun 
try."  In  all  the  good  that  comes  of  this  anguish  you  shall 


428  THE   CHIMNEY-CORNER 

have  a  right  and  share  by  virtue  of  this  sacrifice.  The  joy 
of  freedmen  bursting  from  chains,  the  glory  of  a  nation 
new-born,  the  assurance  of  a  triumphant  future  for  your 
country  and  the  world,  —  all  these  become  yours  by  the 
purchase-money  of  that  precious  blood. 

Besides  this,  there  are  other  treasures  that  come  through 
sorrow,  and  sorrow  alone.  There  are  celestial  plants  of 
root  so  long  and  so  deep  that  the  land  must  be  torn  and 
furrowed,  ploughed  up  from  the  very  foundation,  before 
they  can  strike  and  flourish  ;  and  when  we  see  how  God's 
plough  is  driving  backward  and  forward  and  across  this 
nation,  rending,  tearing  up  tender  shoots,  and  burying  soft 
wild-flowers,  we  ask  ourselves,  What  is  He  going  to  plant? 

Not  the  first  year,  nor  the  second,  after  the  ground  has 
been  broken  up,  does  the  purpose  of  the  husbandman  ap 
pear.  At  first  we  see  only  what  is  uprooted  and  ploughed 
in,  —  the  daisy  drabbled,  and  the  violet  crushed,  —  and  the 
first  trees  planted  amid  the  unsightly  furrows  stand  dumb 
and  disconsolate,  irresolute  in  leaf,  and  without  flower  or 
fruit.  Their  work  is  under  the  ground.  In  darkness  and 
silence  they  are  putting  forth  long  fibres,  searching  hither 
and  thither  under  the  black  soil  for  the  strength  that  years 
hence  shall  burst  into  bloom  and  bearing. 

What  is  true  of  nations  is  true  of  individuals.  It  may 
seem  now  winter  and  desolation  with  you.  Your  hearts 
have  been  ploughed  and  harrowed  and  are  now  frozen  up. 
There  is  not  a  flower  left,  not  a  blade  of  grass,  not  a  bird 
to  sing,  —  and  it  is  hard  to  believe  that  any  brighter  flow 
ers,  any  greener  herbage,  shall  spring  up  than  those  which 
have  been  torn  away  ;  and  yet  there  will.  Nature  herself 
teaches  you  to-day.  Outdoors  nothing  but  bare  branches 
and  shrouding  snow ;  and  yet  you  know  that  there  is  not 
a  tree  that  is  not  patiently  holding  out  at  the  end  of  its 
boughs  next  year's  buds,  frozen  indeed,  but  unkilled.  The 
rhododendron  and  the  lilac  have  their  blossoms  all  ready, 


THE    NEW    YEAR  429 

wrapped  in  cere-cloth,  waiting  in  patient  faith.  Under  the 
frozen  ground  the  crocus  and  the  hyacinth  and  the  tulip 
hide  in  their  hearts  the  perfect  forms  of  future  flowers. 
And  it  is  even  so  with  you  :  your  leaf  buds  of  the  future 
are  frozen,  but  not  killed ;  the  soil  of  your  heart  has  many 
flowers  under  it  cold  and  still  now,  but  they  will  yet  come 
up  and  bloom. 

The  dear  old  book  of  comfort  tells  of  no  present  healing 
for  sorrow.  No  chastening  for  the  present  seemeth  joy 
ous,  but  grievous,  but  afterwards  it  yieldeth  peaceable  fruits 
of  righteousness.  We,  as  individuals,  as  a  nation,  need  to 
have  faith  in  that  AFTERWARDS.  It  is  sure  to  come,  — 
sure  as  spring  and  summer  to  follow  winter. 

There  is  a  certain  amount  of  suffering  which  must  follow 
the  rending  of  the  great  cords  of  life,  suffering  which  is  nat 
ural  and  inevitable  ;  it  cannot  be  argued  down  ;  it  cannot 
be  stilled  ;  it  can  no  more  be  soothed  by  any  effort  of  faith 
and  reason  than  the  pain  of  a  fractured  limb,  or  the  agony 
of  fire  on  the  living  flesh.  All  that  we  can  do  is  to  brace 
ourselves  to  bear  it,  calling  on  God,  as  the  martyrs  did  in 
the  fire,  and  resigning  ourselves  to  let  it  burn  on.  We 
must  be  willing  to  suffer,  since  God  so  wills.  There  are 
just  so  many  waves  to  go  over  us,  just  so  many  arrows  of 
stinging  thought  to  be  shot  into  our  soul,  just  so  many 
faintings  and  sinkings  and  revivings  only  to  suffer  again, 
belonging  to  and  inherent  in  our  portion  of  sorrow ;  and 
there  is  a  work  of  healing  that  God  has  placed  in  the  hands 
of  Time  alone. 

Time  heals  all  things  at  last ;  yet  it  depends  much  on 
us  in  our  suffering,  whether  time  shall  send  us  forth  healed, 
indeed,  but  maimed  and  crippled  and  callous,  or  whether, 
looking  to  the  great  Physician  of  sorrows,  and  co-working 
with  him,  we  come  forth  stronger  and  fairer  even  for  our 
wounds. 

We  call  ourselves  a  Christian  people,  and  the  peculiarity 


430  THE   CHIMNEY-CORNER 

of  Christianity  is  that  it  is  a  worship  and  doctrine  of  sor 
row.  The  five  wounds  of  Jesus,  the  instruments  of  the 
passion,  the  cross,  the  sepulchre,  —  these  are  its  emblems 
and  watchwords.  In  thousands  of  churches,  amid  gold 
and  gems  and  altars  fragrant  with  perfume,  are  seen  the 
crown  of  thorns,  the  nails,  the  spear,  the  cup  of  vinegar 
mingled  with  gall,  the  sponge  that  could  not  slake  that 
burning  death-thirst ;  and  in  a  voice  choked  with  anguish 
the  Church  in  many  lands  and  divers  tongues  prays  from 
age  to  age,  "  By  thine  agony  and  bloody  sweat,  by  thy 
cross  and  passion,  by  thy  precious  death  and  burial !  " 
mighty  words  of  comfort,  whose  meaning  reveals  itself  only 
to  souls  fainting  in  the  cold  death-sweat  of  mortal  anguish  ! 
They  tell  all  Christians  that  by  uttermost  distress  alone 
was  the  Captain  of  their  salvation  made  perfect  as  a  Sa 
viour. 

Sorrow  brings  us  into  the  true  unity  of  the  Church,  — 
that  unity  which  underlies  all  external  creeds,  and  unites 
all  hearts  that  have  suffered  deeply  enough  to  know  that 
when  sorrow  is  at  its  utmost  there  is  but  one  kind  of  sor 
row,  and  but  one  remedy.  What  matter,  in  extremis, 
whether  we  be  called  Romanist,  or  Protestant,  or  Greek,  or 
Calvinist  ? 

We  suffer,  and  Christ  suffered ;  we  die,  and  Christ  died ; 
he  conquered  suffering  and  death,  he  rose  and  lives  and 
reigns,  —  and  we  shall  conquer,  rise,  live,  and  reign.  The 
hours  on  the  cross  were  long,  the  thirst  was  bitter,  the  dark 
ness  and  horror  real, — but  they  ended.  After  the  wail, 
"  My  God,  why  hast  thou  forsaken  me  ?  "  came  the  calm, 
"  It  is  finished  ;  "  pledge  to  us  all  that  our  "  It  is  finished  " 
shall  come  also. 

Christ  arose,  fresh,  joyous,  no  more  to  die  ;  and  it  is 
written  that,  when  the  disciples  were  gathered  together  in 
fear  and  sorrow,  he  stood  in  the  midst  of  them,  and  showed 
unto  them  his  hands  and  his  side  ;  and  then  were  they  glad. 


THE    NEW   YEAR  431 

Already  had  the  healed  wounds  of  Jesus  become  pledges  of 
consolation  to  innumerable  thousands ;  and  those  who,  like 
Christ,  have  suffered  the  weary  struggles,  the  dim  horrors 
of  the  cross,  —  who  have  lain,  like  him,  cold  and  chilled  in 
the  hopeless  sepulchre,  —  if  his  spirit  wakes  them  to  life, 
shall  come  forth  with  healing  power  for  others  who  have 
suffered  and  are  suffering. 

Count  the  good  and  beautiful  ministrations  that  have 
been  wrought  in  this  world  of  need  and  labor,  and  how 
many  of  them  have  been  wrought  by  hands  wounded  and 
scarred,  by  hearts  that  had  scarcely  ceased  to  bleed ! 

How  many  priests  of  consolation  is  God  now  ordaining 
by  the  fiery  imposition  of  sorrow  !  how  many  Sisters  of  the 
Bleeding  Heart,  Daughters  of  Mercy,  Sisters  of  Charity,  are 
receiving  their  first  vocation  in  tears  and  blood ! 

The  report  of  every  battle  strikes  into  some  home ;  and 
heads  fall  low,  and  hearts  are  shattered,  and  only  God  sees 
the  joy  that  is  set  before  them,  and  that  shall  come  out  of 
their  sorrow.  He  sees  our  morning  at  the  same  moment 
that  He  sees  our  night,  —  sees  us  comforted,  healed,  risen 
to  a  higher  life,  at  the  same  moment  that  He  sees  us  crushed 
and  broken  in  the  dust ;  and  so,  though  tenderer  than  we, 
He  bears  our  great  sorrows  for  the  joy  that  is  set  before  us. 

After  the  Napoleonic  wars  had  desolated  Europe,  the 
country  was,  like  all  countries  after  war,  full  of  shattered 
households,  of  widows  and  orphans  and  homeless  wanderers. 
A  nobleman  of  Silesia,  the  Baron  von  Kottwitz,  who  had 
lost  his  wife  and  all  his  family  in  the  reverses  and  sorrows 
of  the  times,  found  himself  alone  in  the  world,  which  looked 
more  dreary  and  miserable  through  the  multiplying  lenses 
of  his  own  tears.  But  he  was  one  of  those  whose  heart 
had  been  quickened  in  its  death  anguish  by  the  resurrec 
tion  voice  of  Christ ;  and  he  came  forth  to  life  and  comfort. 
He  bravely  resolved  to  do  all  that  one  man  could  to  lessen 
the  great  sum  of  misery.  He  sold  his  estates  in  Silesia, 


432  THE   CHIMNEY-CORNER 

bought  in  Berlin  a  large  building  that  had  been  used  as 
barracks  for  the  soldiers,  and,  fitting  it  up  in  plain,  commo 
dious  apartments,  formed  there  a  great  family-establishment, 
into  which  he  received  the  wrecks  and  fragments  of  families 
that  had  been  broken  up  by  the  war, — orphan  children, 
widowed  and  helpless  women,  decrepit  old  people,  disabled 
soldiers.  These  he  made  his  family,  and  constituted  him 
self  their  father  and  chief.  He  abode  with  them,  arid  cared 
for  them  as  a  parent.  He  had  schools  for  the  children  ;  the 
more  advanced  he  put  to  trades  and  employments  ;  he  set 
up  a  hospital  for  the  sick ;  and  for  all  he  had  the  priestly 
ministrations  of  his  own  Christ-like  heart.  The  celebrated 
Professor  Tholuck,  one  of  the  most  learned  men  of  modern 
Germany,  was  an  early  protege  of  the  old  Baron's,  who,  dis 
cerning  his  talents,  put  him  in  the  way  of  a  liberal  educa 
tion.  In  his  earlier  years,  like  many  others  of  the  young 
who  play  with  life,  ignorant  of  its  needs,  Tholuck  piqued 
himself  on  a  lordly  skepticism  with  regard  to  the  commonly 
received  Christianity,  and  even  wrote  an  essay  to  prove  the 
superiority  of  the  Mohammedan  to  the  Christian  religion. 
In  speaking  of  his  conversion,  he  says,  —  "  What  moved 
me  was  no  argument,  nor  any  spoken  reproof,  but  simply 
that  divine  image  of  the  old  Baron  walking  before  my  soul. 
That  life  was  an  argument  always  present  to  me,  and  which 
I  never  could  answer  ;  and  so  I  became  a  Christian."  In 
the  life  of  this  man  we  see  the  victory  over  sorrow.  How 
many  with  means  like  his,  when  desolated  by  like  bereave 
ments,  have  lain  coldly  and  idly  gazing  on  the  miseries  of 
life,  and  weaving  around  themselves  icy  tissues  of  doubt 
and  despair,  —  doubting  the  being  of  a  God,  doubting  the 
reality  of  a  Providence,  doubting  the  divine  love,  embittered 
and  rebellious  against  the  power  which  they  could  not  re 
sist,  yet  to  which  they  would  not  submit !  In  such  a  chill 
heart-freeze  lies  the  danger  of  sorrow.  And  it  is  a  mortal 
danger.  It  is  a  torpor  that  must  be  resisted,  as  the  man  in 


THE    NEW   YEAR  433 

the  whirling  snows  must  bestir  himself,  or  he  will  perish. 
The  apathy  of  melancholy  must  be  broken  by  an  effort  of 
religion  and  duty.  The  stagnant  blood  must  be  made  to  flow 
by  active  work,  and  the  cold  hand  warmed  by  clasping  the 
hands  outstretched  towards  it  in  sympathy  or  supplication. 
One  orphan  child  taken  in,  to  be  fed,  clothed,  and  nurtured, 
may  save  a  heart  from  freezing  to  death  :  and  God  knows 
this  war  is  making  but  too  many  orphans ! 

It  is  easy  to  subscribe  to  an  orphan  asylum,  and  go  on 
in  one's  despair  and  loneliness.  Such  ministries  may  do  good 
to  the  children  who  are  thereby  saved  from  the  street,  but 
they  impart  little  warmth  and  comfort  to  the  giver.  One 
destitute  child  housed,  taught,  cared  for,  and  tended  person 
ally,  will  bring  more  solace  to  a  suffering  heart  than  a  dozen 
maintained  in  an  asylum.  Not  that  the  child  will  probably 
prove  an  angel,  or  even  an  uncommonly  interesting  mortal. 
It  is  a  prosaic  work,  this  bringing-up  of  children,  and  there 
can  be  little  rose-water  in  it.  The  child  may  not  appreciate 
what  is  done  for  him,  may  not  be  particularly  grateful,  may 
have  disagreeable  faults,  and  continue  to  have  them  after 
much  pains  on  your  part  to  eradicate  them,  —  and  yet  it  is 
a  fact,  that  to  redeem  one  human  being  from  destitution 
and  ruin,  even  in  some  homely  every-day  course  of  minis 
trations,  is  one  of  the  best  possible  tonics  and  alteratives  to 
a  sick  and  wounded  spirit. 

But  this  is  not  the  only  avenue  to  beneficence  which  the 
war  opens.  We  need  but  name  the  service  of  hospitals,  the 
care  and  education  of  the  f reedmen,  —  for  these  are  chari 
ties  that  have  long  been  before  the  eyes  of  the  community, 
and  have  employed  thousands  of  busy  hands  :  thousands  of 
sick  and  dying  beds  to  tend,  a  race  to  be  educated,  civilized, 
and  Christianized,  surely  were  work  enough  for  one  age  ;  and 
yet  this  is  not  all.  War  shatters  everything,  and  it  is  hard 
to  say  what  in  society  will  not  need  rebuilding  and  binding 
up  and  strengthening  anew.  Not  the  least  of  the  evils  of 


434  THE   CHIMNEY-CORNER 

war  are  the  vices  which  a  great  army  engenders  wherever  it 
moves,  —  vices  peculiar  to  military  life,  as  others  are  pecu 
liar  to  peace.  The  poor  soldier  perils  for  us  not  merely  his 
body,  but  his  soul.  He  leads  a  life  of  harassing  and  exhaust 
ing  toil  and  privation,  of  violent  strain  on  the  nervous  ener 
gies,  alternating  with  sudden  collapse,  creating  a  craving  for 
stimulants,  and  endangering  the  formation  of  fatal  habits. 
What  furies  and  harpies  are  those  that  follow  the  army, 
and  that  seek  out  the  soldier  in  his  tent,  far  from  home,  mo 
ther,  wife  and  sister,  tired,  disheartened,  and  tempt  him  to 
forget  his  troubles  in  a  momentary  exhilaration,  that  burns 
only  to  chill  and  to  destroy  !  Evil  angels  are  always  active 
and  indefatigable,  and  there  must  be  good  angels  enlisted  to 
face  them  ;  and  here  is  employment  for  the  slack  hand  of  grief. 
Ah,  we  have  known  mothers  bereft  of  sons  in  this  war,  who 
have  seemed  at  once  to  open  wide  their  hearts,  and  to  be 
come  mothers  to  every  brave  soldier  in  the  field.  They 
have  lived  only  to  work,  —  and  in  place  of  one  lost,  their 
sons  have  been  counted  by  thousands. 

And  not  least  of  all  the  fields  for  exertion  and  Christian 
charity  opened  by  this  war  is  that  presented  by  womanhood. 
The  war  is  abstracting  from  the  community  its  protecting 
and  sheltering  elements,  and  leaving  the  helpless  and  depen 
dent  in  vast  disproportion.  For  years  to  come,  the  average 
of  lone  women  will  be  largely  increased;  and  the  demand, 
always  great,  for  some  means  by  which  they  may  provide 
for  themselves,  in  the  rude  jostle  of  the  world,  will  become 
more  urgent  and  imperative. 

Will  any  one  sit  pining  away  in  inert  grief,  when  two 
streets  off  are  the  midnight  dance-houses,  where  girls  of 
twelve,  thirteen,  and  fourteen  are  being  lured  into  the  way 
of  swift  destruction  ?  How  many  of  these  are  daughters 
of  soldiers  who  have  given  their  hearts'  blood  for  us  and 
our  liberties ! 

Two  noble  women  of  the  Society  of  Friends  have  lately 


THE    NEW   YEAR  435 

been  taking  the  gauge  of  suffering  and  misery  in  our  land, 
visiting  the  hospitals  at  every  accessible  point,  pausing  in 
our  great  cities,  and  going  in  their  purity  to  those  midnight 
orgies  where  mere  children  are  being  trained  for  a  life  of  vice 
and  infamy.  They  have  talked  with  these  poor  bewildered 
souls,  entangled  in  toils  as  terrible  and  inexorable  as  those 
of  the  slave-market,  and  many  of  whom  are  frightened  and 
distressed  at  the  life  they  are  beginning  to  lead,  and  ear 
nestly  looking  for  the  means  of  escape.  In  the  judgment 
of  these  holy  women,  at  least  one  third  of  those  with  whom 
they  have  talked  are  children  so  recently  entrapped,  and  so 
capable  of  reformation,  that  there  would  be  the  greatest 
hope  in  efforts  for  their  salvation.  While  such  things  are 
to  be  done  in  our  land,  is  there  any  reason  why  any  one 
should  die  of  grief  ?  One  soul  redeemed  will  do  more  to  lift 
the  burden  of  sorrow  than  all  the  blandishments  and  diver 
sions  of  art,  all  the  alleviations  of  luxury,  all  the  sympathy 
of  friends. 

In  the  Roman  Catholic  Church  there  is  an  order  of  wo 
men  called  the  Sisters  of  the  Good  Shepherd,  who  have 
renounced  the  world  to  devote  themselves,  their  talents  and 
property,  entirely  to  the  work  of  seeking  out  and  saving 
the  fallen  of  their  own  sex  ;  and  the  wonders  worked  by 
their  self-denying  love  on  the  hearts  and  lives  of  even  the 
most  depraved  are  credible  only  to  those  who  know  that 
the  Good  Shepherd  himself  ever  lives  and  works  with  such 
spirits  engaged  in  such  a  work.  A  similar  order  of  women 
exists  in  New  York,  under  the  direction  of  the  Episcopal 
Church,  in  connection  with  St.  Luke's  Hospital ;  and  an 
other  in  England,  who  tend  the  "  House  of  Mercy "  of 
Clewer. 

Such  benevolent  associations  offer  objects  of  interest  to 
that  class  which  most  needs  something  to  fill  the  void  made 
by  bereavement.  The  wounds  of  grief  are  less  apt  to  find 
a  cure  in  that  rank  of  life  where  the  sufferer  has  wealth  and 


436  THE    CHIMNEY-CORNER 

leisure.  The  poor  widow,  whose  husband  was  her  all,  must 
break  the  paralysis  of  grief.  The  hard  necessities  of  life  are 
her  physicians  ;  they  send  her  out  to  unwelcome,  yet  friendly 
toil,  which,  hard  as  it  seems,  has  yet  its  healing  power. 
But  the  sufferer  surrounded  by  the  appliances  of  wealth  and 
luxury  may  long  indulge  the  baleful  apathy,  and  remain  in 
the  damp  shadows  of  the  valley  of  death  till  strength  and 
health  are  irrecoverably  lost.  How  Christ-like  is  the  thought 
of  a  woman,  graceful,  elegant,  cultivated,  refined,  whose  voice 
has  been  trained  to  melody,  whose  fingers  can  make  sweet 
harmony  with  every  touch,  whose  pencil  and  whose  needle 
can  awake  the  beautiful  creations  of  art,  devoting  all  these 
powers  to  the  work  of  charming  back  to  the  sheepfold  those 
wandering  and  bewildered  lambs  whom  the  Good  Shepherd 
still  calls  his  own  !  Jenny  Lind  once,  when  she  sang  at  a 
concert  for  destitute  children,  exclaimed  in  her  enthusiasm, 
"  Is  it  not  beautiful  that  I  can  sing  so  ?  "  And  so  may  not 
every  woman  feel,  when  her  graces  and  accomplishments 
draw  the  wanderer,  and  charm  away  evil  demons,  and  soothe 
the  sore  and  sickened  spirit,  and  make  the  Christian  fold 
more  attractive  than  the  dizzy  gardens  of  false  pleasure  ? 

In  such  associations,  and  others  of  kindred  nature,  how 
many  of  the  stricken  and  bereaved  women  of  our  country 
might  find  at  once  a  home  and  an  object  in  life  !  Motherless 
hearts  might  be  made  glad  in  a  better  and  higher  mother 
hood  ;  and  the  stock  of  earthly  life  that  seemed  cut  off  at 
the  root,  and  dead  past  recovery,  may  be  grafted  upon  with 
a  shoot  from  the  tree  of  life  which  is  in  the  Paradise  of  God. 

So  the  beginning  of  this  eventful  1865,  which  finds  us 
still  treading  the  wine-press  of  our  great  conflict,  should 
bring  with  it  a  serene  and  solemn  hope,  a  joy  such  as  those 
had  with  whom  in  the  midst  of  the  fiery  furnace  there 
walked  one  like  unto  the  Son  of  God. 

The  great  affliction  that  has  come  upon  our  country  is  so 
evidently  the  purifying  chastening  of  a  Father,  rather  than 


THE   NEW   YEAR  437 

the  avenging  anger  of  a  Destroyer,  that  all  hearts  may  submit 
themselves  in  a  solemn  and  holy  calm  still  to  bear  the  burn 
ing  that  shall  make  us  clean  from  dross  and  bring  us  forth 
to  a  higher  national  life.  Never,  in  the  whole  course  of  our 
history,  have  such  teachings  of  the  pure  abstract  Bight  been 
so  commended  and  force^  upon  us  by  Providence.  Never 
have  public  men  been  so  constrained  to  humble  themselves 
before  God,  and  to  acknowledge  that  there  is  a  Judge  that 
ruleth  in  the  earth.  Verily  his  inquisition  for  blood  has 
been  strict  and  awful ;  and  for  every  stricken  household  of 
the  poor  and  lowly  hundreds  of  households  of  the  oppressor 
have  been  scattered.  The  land  where  the  family  of  the  slave 
was  first  annihilated,  and  the  negro,  with  all  the  loves  and 
hopes  of  a  man,  was  proclaimed  to  be  a  beast  to  be  bred  and 
sold  in  market  with  the  horse  and  the  swine,  —  that  land, 
with  its  fair  name,  Virginia,  has  been  made  a  desolation  so 
signal,  so  wonderful,  that  the  blindest  passer-by  cannot  but 
ask  for  what  sin  so  awful  a  doom  has  been  meted  out.  The 
prophetic  visions  of  Nat  Turner,  who  saw  the  leaves  drop 
blood  and  the  land  darkened,  have  been  fulfilled.  The  work 
of  justice  which  he  predicted  is  being  executed  to  the  utter 
most. 

But  when  this  strange  work  of  judgment  and  justice  is 
consummated,  when  our  country,  through  a  thousand  battles 
and  ten  thousands  of  precious  deaths,  shall  have  come  forth 
from  this  long  agony,  redeemed  and  regenerated,  then  God 
himself  shall  return  and  dwell  with  us,  and  the  Lord  God 
shall  wipe  away  all  tears  from  all  faces,  and  the  rebuke  of 
his  people  shall  he  utterly  take  away. 


XIII 

THE    NOBLE    ARMY    OF    MARTYRS 

WHEX  the  first  number  of  the  Chimney-Corner  appeared, 
the  snow  lay  white  on  the  ground,  the  buds  on  the  trees 
were  closed  and  frozen,  and  beneath  the  hard  frost-bound 
soil  lay  buried  the  last  year's  flower-roots,  waiting  for  a 
resurrection. 

So  in  our  hearts  it  was  winter,  —  a  winter  of  patient  suf 
fering  and  expectancy,  —  a  winter  of  suppressed  sobs,  of 
inward  bleedings,  —  a  cold,  choked,  compressed  anguish  of 
endurance,  for  how  long  and  how  much  God  only  could  tell 
us. 

The  first  paper  of  the  Chimney-Corner,  as  was  most  meet 
and  fitting,  was  given  to  those  homes  made  sacred  and  ven 
erable  by  the  cross  of  martyrdom,  —  by  the  chrism  of  a 
great  sorrow.  That  Chimney-Corner  made  bright  by  home 
firelight  seemed  a  fitting  place  for  a  solemn  act  of  reverent 
sympathy  for  the  homes  by  whose  darkness  our  homes  had 
been  preserved  bright,  by  whose  emptiness  our  homes  had 
been  kept  full,  by  whose  losses  our  homes  had  been  enriched  ; 
and  so  we  ventured  with  trembling  to  utter  these  words  of 
sympathy  and  cheer  to  those  whom  God  had  chosen  to  this 
great  sacrifice  of  sorrow. 

The  winter  months  passed  with  silent  footsteps,  spring 
returned,  and  the  sun,  with  ever  waxing  power,  unsealed 
the  snowy  sepulchre  of  buds  and  leaves,  —  birds  reappeared, 
brooks  were  unchained,  flowers  filled  every  desolate  dell 
with  blossoms  and  perfume.  And  with  returning  spring,  in 
like  manner,  the  chill  frost  of  our  fears  and  of  our  dangers 


THE    NOBLE   ARMY    OF   MARTYRS  439 

melted  before  the  breath  of  the  Lord.  The  great  war,  which 
lay  like  a  mountain  of  ice  upon  our  hearts,  suddenly  dis 
solved  and  was  gone.  The  fears  of  the  past  were  as  a  dream 
when  one  awaketh,  and  now  we  scarce  realize  our  deliver 
ance.  A  thousand  hopes  are  springing  up  everywhere,  like 
spring  flowers  in  the  forest.  All  is  hopefulness,  all  is  be 
wildering  joy. 

But  this  our  joy  has  been  ordained  to  be  changed  into  a 
wail  of  sorrow.  The  kind  hard  hand,  that  held  the  helm 
so  steadily  in  the  desperate  tossings  of  the  storm,  has  been 
stricken  down  just  as  we  entered  port,  —  the  fatherly  heart 
that  bore  all  our  sorrows  can  take  no  earthly  part  in  our 
joys.  His  were  the  cares,  the  watchings,  the  toils,  the 
agonies,  of  a  nation  in  mortal  struggle  ;  and  God,  looking 
down,  was  so  well  pleased  with  his  humble  faithfulness, 
his  patient  continuance  in  well-doing,  that  earthly  rewards 
and  honors  seemed  all  too  poor  for  him,  so  he  reached 
down  and  took  him  to  immortal  glories.  "Well  done, 
good  and  faithful  servant,  enter  thou  into  the  joy  of  thy 
Lord  !  " 

Henceforth  the  place  of  Abraham  Lincoln  is  first  among 
that  noble  army  of  martyrs  who  have  given  their  blood  to 
the  cause  of  human  freedom.  The  eyes  are  yet  too  dim 
with  tears  that  would  seek  calmly  to  trace  out  his  place  in 
history.  He  has  been  a  marvel  and  a  phenomenon  among 
statesmen,  a  new  kind  of  ruler  in  the  earth.  There  has 
been  something  even  unearthly  about  his  extreme  unselfish 
ness,  his  utter  want  of  personal  ambition,  personal  self- val 
uation,  personal  feeling. 

The  most  unsparing  criticism,  denunciation,  and  ridicule 
never  moved  him  to  a  single  bitter  expression,  never  seemed 
to  awaken  in  him  a  single  bitter  thought.  The  most  exult 
ant  hour  of  party  victory  brought  no  exultation  to  him ;  he 
accepted  power  not  as  an  honor,  but  as  a  responsibility  ;  and 
when,  after  a  severe  struggle,  that  power  came  a  second  time 


440  THE   CHIMNEY-CORNER 

into  his  hands,  there  was  something  preternatural  in  the 
calmness  of  his  acceptance  of  it.  The  first  impulse  seemed 
to  be  a  disclaimer  of  all  triumph  over  the  party  that  had 
strained  their  utmost  to  push  him  from  his  seat,  and  then 
a  sober  girding  up  of  his  loins  to  go  on  with  the  work  to 
which  he  was  appointed.  His  last  inaugural  was  character 
ized  by  a  tone  so  peculiarly  solemn  and  free  from  earthly 
passion,  that  it  seems  to  us  now,  who  look  back  on  it  in  the 
light  of  what  has  followed,  as  if  his  soul  had  already  parted 
from  earthly  things,  and  felt  the  powers  of  the  world  to 
come.  It  was  not  the  formal  state  paper  of  the  chief  of 
a  party  in  an  hour  of  victory,  so  much  as  the  solemn  solil 
oquy  of  a  great  soul  reviewing  its  course  under  a  vast  re 
sponsibility,  and  appealing  from  all  earthly  judgments  to 
the  tribunal  of  Infinite  Justice.  It  was  the  solemn  clear 
ing  of  his  soul  for  the  great  sacrament  of  Death,  and  the 
words  that  he  quoted  in  it  with  such  thrilling  power  were 
those  of  the  adoring  spirits  that  veil  their  faces  before  the 
throne,  —  "  Just  and  true  are  thy  ways,  thou  King  of 
saints  !  " 

Among  the  rich  treasures  which  this  bitter  struggle  has 
brought  to  our  country,  not  the  least  is  the  moral  wealth 
which  has  come  to  us  in  the  memory  of  our  martyrs. 
Thousands  of  men,  women,  and  children  too,  in  this  great 
conflict,  have  "  endured  tortures,  not  accepting  deliverance," 
counting  not  their  lives  dear  unto  them  in  the  holy  cause ; 
and  they  have  done  this  as  understandingly  and  thoughtfully 
as  the  first  Christians  who  sealed  their  witness  with  their 
blood. 

Let  us  in  our  hour  of  deliverance  and  victory  record  the 
solemn  vow,  that  our  right  hand  shall  forget  her  cunning 
before  we  forget  them  and  their  sufferings,  —  that  our  tongue 
shall  cleave  to  the  roof  of  our  mouth  if  we  remember  them 
not  above  our  chief  joy. 

Least  suffering  among  that  noble  band  were  those  who 


THE    NOBLE   ARMY   OF   MARTYRS  441 

laid  down  their  lives  on  the  battlefield,  to  whom  was  given 
a  brief  and  speedy  passage  to  the  victor's  meed.  The  mourn 
ers  who  mourn  for  such  as  these  must  give  place  to  another 
and  more  august  band,  who  have  sounded  lower  deeps  of 
anguish,  and  drained  bitterer  drops  out  of  our  great  cup  of 
trembling. 

The  narrative  of  the  lingering  tortures,  indignities,  and 
sufferings  of  our  soldiers  in  Rebel  prisons  has  been  something 
so  harrowing  that  we  have  not  dared  to  dwell  upon  it.  We 
have  been  helplessly  dumb  before  it,  and  have  turned  away  our 
eyes  from  what  we  could  not  relieve,  and  therefore  could  not 
endure  to  look  upon.  But  now,  when  the  nation  is  called 
to  strike  the  great  and  solemn  balance  of  justice,  and  to  de 
cide  measures  of  final  retribution,  it  behooves  us  all  that  we 
should  at  least  watch  with  our  brethren  for  one  hour,  and 
take  into  our  account  what  they  have  been  made  to  suffer 
for  us. 

Sterne  said  he  could  realize  the  miseries  of  captivity  only 
by  setting  before  him  the  image  of  a  miserable  captive  with 
hollow  cheek  and  wasted  eye,  notching  upon  a  stick,  day 
after  day,  the  weary  record  of  the  flight  of  time.  So  we 
can  form  a  more  vivid  picture  of  the  sufferings  of  our  mar 
tyrs  from  one  simple  story  than  from  any  general  descrip 
tion  ;  and  therefore  we  will  speak  right  on,  and  tell  one 
story  which  might  stand  as  a  specimen  of  what  has  been 
done  and  suffered  by  thousands. 

In  the  town  of  Andover,  Massachusetts,  a  boy  of  sixteen, 
named  Walter  Raymond,  enlisted  among  our  volunteers. 
He  was  under  the  prescribed  age,  but  his  eager  zeal  led  him 
to  follow  the  footsteps  of  an  elder  brother  who  had  already 
enlisted ;  and  the  father  of  the  boy,  though  these  two  were 
all  the  sons  he  had,  instead  of  availing  himself  of  his  legal 
right  to  withdraw  him,  indorsed  the  act  in  the  following 
letter  addressed  to  his  captain  :  — 


442  THE   CHIMNEY-CORNER 

ANDOVER,  MASS.,  August  15,  18G2. 

CAPTAIN  HUNT,  —  My  eldest  son  has  enlisted  in  your 
company.  I  send  you  his  younger  brother.  He  is,  and 
always  has  been,  in  perfect  health,  of  more  than  the  ordinary 
power  of  endurance,  honest,  truthful,  and  courageous.  I 
doubt  not  you  will  find  him  on  trial  all  you  can  ask,  except 
his  age,  and  that  I  am  sorry  to  say  is  only  sixteen  ;  yet  if 
our  country  needs  his  service,  take  him. 

Your  obedient  servant, 

SAMUEL  RAYMOND. 

The  boy  went  forth  to  real  service,  and  to  successive  bat 
tles  at  Kingston,  at  Whitehall,  and  at  Goldsborough  ;  and 
in  all  this  did  his  duty  bravely  and  faithfully.  He  met  the 
temptations  and  dangers  of  a  soldier's  life  with  the  pure- 
hearted  firmness  of  a  Christian  child,  neither  afraid  nor 
ashamed  to  remember  his  baptismal  vows,  his  Sunday-school 
teachings,  and  his  mother's  wishes. 

He  had  passed  his  promise  to  his  mother  against  drinking 
and  smoking,  and  held  it  with  a  simple,  childlike  steadiness. 
When  in  the  midst  of  malarious  swamps,  physicians  and 
officers  advised  the  use  of  tobacco.  The  boy  writes  to  his 
mother :  "A  great  many  have  begun  to  smoke,  but  I  shall 
not  do  it  without  your  permission,  though  I  think  it  does  a 
great  deal  of  good." 

In  his  leisure  hours,  he  was  found  in  his  tent  reading  ; 
and  before  battle  he  prepared  his  soul  with  the  beautiful 
psalms  and  collects  for  the  day,  as  appointed  by  his  church, 
and  writes  with  simplicity  to  his  friends  :  — 

"  I  prayed  God  that  he  would  watch  over  me,  and  if  I 
fell,  receive  my  soul  in  heaven  ;  and  I  also  prayed  that  I 
might  not  forget  the  cause  I  was  fighting  for,  and  turn  my 
back  in  fear." 

After  nine  months'  service,  he  returned  with  a  soldier's 
experience,  though  with  a  frame  weakened  by  sickness  in  a 


THE    NOBLE   ARMY   OF   MARTYRS  443 

malarious  region.  But  no  sooner  did  health  and  strength 
return  than  he  again  enlisted,  in  the  Massachusetts  cavalry 
service,  and  passed  many  months  of  constant  activity  and 
adventure,  being  in  some  severe  skirmishes  and  battles  with 
that  portion  of  Sheridan's  troops  who  approached  nearest  to 
Richmond,  getting  within  a  mile  and  a  half  of  the  city.  At 
the  close  of  this  raid,  so  hard  had  been  the  service,  that 
only  thirty  horses  were  left  out  of  seventy-four  in  his  com 
pany,  and  Walter  and  two  others  were  the  sole  survivors 
among  eight  who  occupied  the  same  tent. 

On  the  sixteenth  of  August,  Walter  was  taken  prisoner 
in  a  skirmish  ;  and  from  the  time  that  this  news  reached 
his  parents,  until  the  18th  of  the  following  March,  they 
could  ascertain  nothing  of  his  fate.  A  general  exchange  of 
prisoners  having  been  then  effected,  they  learned  that  he 
had  died  on  Christmas  Day  in  Salisbury  Prison,  of  hardship 
and  privation. 

What  these  hardships  were  is,  alas !  easy  to  be  known 
from  those  too  well-authenticated  accounts  published  by  our 
government  of  the  treatment  experienced  by  our  soldiers  in 
the  Rebel  prisons. 

Robbed  of  clothing,  of  money,  of  the  soldier's  best  friend, 
his  sheltering  blanket,  —  herded  in  shivering  nakedness  on 
the  bare  ground,  —  deprived  of  every  implement  by  which 
men  of  energy  and  spirit  had  soon  bettered  their  lot,  —  for 
bidden  to  cut  in  adjacent  forests  branches  for  shelter,  or  fuel 
to  cook  their  coarse  food,  —  fed  on  a  pint  of  corn-and-cob- 
meal  per  day,  with  some  slight  addition  of  molasses  or  ran 
cid  meat,  —  denied  all  mental  resources,  all  letters  from 
home,  all  writing  to  friends,  —  these  men  were  cut  off  from 
the  land  of  the  living  while  yet  they  lived,  —  they  were 
made  to  dwell  in  darkness  as  those  that  have  been  long 
dead. 

By  such  slow,  lingering  tortures,  —  such  weary,  wasting 
anguish  and  sickness  of  body  and  soul,  —  it  was  the  infer- 


444  THE    CHIMNEY-CORNER 

nal  policy  of  the  Rebel  government  either  to  wring  from 
them  an  abjuration  of  their  country,  or  by  slow  and  steady 
draining  away  of  the  vital  forces  to  render  them  forever  un 
fit  to  serve  in  her  armies. 

Walter's  constitution  bore  four  months  of  this  usage, 
when  death  came  to  his  release.  A  fellow  sufferer,  who 
was  with  him  in  his  last  hours,  brought  the  account  to  his 
parents. 

Through  all  his  terrible  privations,  even  the  lingering 
pains  of  slow  starvation,  Walter  preserved  his  steady  sim 
plicity,  his  faith  in  God,  and  unswerving  fidelity  to  the 
cause  for  which  he  was  suffering. 

When  the  Rebels  had  kept  the  prisoners  fasting  for  days, 
and  then  brought  in  delicacies  to  tempt  their  appetite,  hop 
ing  thereby  to  induce  them  to  desert  their  flag,  he  only 
answered,  "  I  would  rather  be  carried  out  in  that  dead- 
cart  !  " 

When  told  by  some  that  he  must  steal  from  his  fellow 
sufferers,  as  many  did,  in  order  to  relieve  the  pangs  of  hun 
ger,  he  answered,  "  No,  I  was  not  brought  up  to  that !  " 
And  so  when  his  weakened  system  would  no  longer  receive 
the  cobmeal  which  was  his  principal  allowance,  he  set  his 
face  calmly  towards  death.  He  grew  gradually  weaker  and 
weaker  and  fainter  and  fainter,  and  at  last  disease  of  the 
lungs  set  in,  and  it  became  apparent  that  the  end  was  at 
hand. 

On  Christmas  Day,  while  thousands  among  us  were  bow 
ing  in  our  garlanded  churches  or  surrounding  festive  tables, 
this  young  martyr  lay  on  the  cold,  damp  ground,  watched 
over  by  his  destitute  friends,  who  sought  to  soothe  his  last 
hours  with  such  scanty  comforts  as  their  utter  poverty  af 
forded,  —  raising  his  head  on  the  block  of  wood  which  was 
his  only  pillow,  and  moistening  his  brow  and  lips  with 
water,  while  his  life  ebbed  slowly  away,  until  about  two 
o'clock,  when  he  suddenly  roused  himself,  stretched  out  his 


THE    NOBLE   ARMY   OF   MARTYRS  445 

hand,  and,  drawing  to  him  his  dearest  friend  among  those 
around  him,  said,  in  a  strong,  clear  voice :  — 

"  I  am  going  to  die.  Go  tell  my  father  I  am  ready  to 
die,  for  I  die  for  God  and  my  country," -  —  and,  looking  up 
with  a  triumphant  smile,  he  passed  to  the  reward  of  the 
faithful. 

And  now,  men  and  brethren,  if  this  story  were  a  single 
one,  it  were  worthy  to  be  had  in  remembrance  ;  but  Walter 
Raymond  is  not  the  only  noble-hearted  boy  or  man  that 
has  been  slowly  tortured  and  starved  and  done  to  death,  by 
the  fiendish  policy  of  Jefferson  Davis  and  Robert  Edmund 
Lee.  No,  —  wherever  this  simple  history  shall  be  read, 
there  will  arise  hundreds  of  men  and  women  who  will  tes 
tify,  "  Just  so  died  my  son  !  "  "  So  died  my  brother  !  " 
"  So  died  my  husband  !  "  "  So  died  my  father  !  "  The 
numbers  who  have  died  in  these  lingering  tortures  are  to 
be  counted,  not  by  hundreds,  or  even  by  thousands,  but  by 
tens  of  thousands. 

And  is  there  to  be  no  retribution  for  a  cruelty  so  vast, 
so  aggravated,  so  cowardly  and  base  ?  And  if  there  is  re 
tribution,  on  whose  head  should  it  fall  ?  Shall  we  seize 
and  hang  the  poor,  ignorant,  stupid,  imbruted  semi-barbari 
ans  who  were  set  as  jailers  to  keep  these  hells  of  torment 
and  inflict  these  insults  and  cruelties  ?  or  shall  we  punish 
the  educated,  intelligent  chiefs  who  were  the  head  and  brain 
of  the  iniquity  ? 

If  General  Lee  had  been  determined  not  to  have  prison 
ers  starved  or  abused,  does  any  one  doubt  that  he  could 
have  prevented  these  things  ?  Nobody  doubts  it.  His 
raiment  is  red  with  the  blood  of  his  helpless  captives.  Does 
any  one  doubt  that  Jefferson  Davis,  living  in  ease  and  lux 
ury  in  Richmond,  knew  that  men  were  dying  by  inches  in 
filth  and  squalor  and  privation  in  the  Libby  Prison,  within 
bowshot  of  his  own  door  ?  Nobody  doubts  it.  It  was  his 
will,  his  deliberate  policy,  thus  to  destroy  those  who  fell 


446  THE   CHIMNEY-CORNER 

into  his  hands.  The  chief  of  a  so-called  Confederacy,  who 
could  calmly  consider  among  his  official  documents  incen 
diary  plots  for  the  secret  destruction  of  ships,  hotels,  and 
cities  full  of  peaceable  people,  is  a  chief  well  worthy  to  pre 
side  over  such  cruelties  ;  but  his  only  just  title  is  President 
of  Assassins,  and  the  whole  civilized  world  should  make 
common  cause  against  such  a  miscreant. 

There  has  been,  on  both  sides  of  the  water,  much  weak, 
ill-advised  talk  of  mercy  and  magnanimity  to  be  extended 
to  these  men,  whose  crimes  have  produced  a  misery  so  vast 
and  incalculable.  The  wretches  who  have  tortured  the 
weak  and  the  helpless,  who  have  secretly  plotted  to  sup 
plement,  by  dastardly  schemes  of  murder  and  arson,  that 
strength  which  failed  them  in  fair  fight,  have  been  commis 
erated  as  brave  generals  and  unfortunate  patriots,  and  efforts 
are  made  to  place  them  within  the  comities  of  war. 

It  is  no  feeling  of  personal  vengeance,  but  a  sense  of  the 
eternal  fitness  of  things,  that  makes  us  rejoice,  when  crim 
inals  who  have  so  outraged  every  sentiment  of  humanity 
are  arrested  and  arraigned  and  awarded  due  retribution  at 
the  bar  of  their  country's  justice.  There  are  crimes  against 
God  and  human  nature  which  it  is  treason  alike  to  God  and 
man  not  to  punish  ;  and  such  have  been  the  crimes  of  the 
traitors  who  were  banded  together  in  Richmond. 

If  there  be  those  whose  hearts  lean  to  pity,  we  can  show 
them  where  all  the  pity  of  their  hearts  may  be  better  be 
stowed  than  in  deploring  the  woes  of  assassins.  Let  them 
think  of  the  thousands  of  fathers,  mothers,  wives,  sisters, 
whose  lives  will  be  forever  haunted  with  memories  of  the 
slow  tortures  in  which  their  best  and  bravest  were  done  to 
death. 

The  sufferings  of  those  brave  men  are  ended.  Xearly  a 
hundred  thousand  are  sleeping  in  those  sad  nameless  graves, 
—  and  may  their  rest  be  sweet !  "  There  the  wicked  cease 
from  troubling ;  and  there  the  weary  be  at  rest.  There  the 


THE    NOBLE   ARMY   OF   MARTYRS  447 

prisoners  rest  together  ;  they  hear  not  the  voice  of  the 
oppressor."  But,  0  ye  who  have  pity  to  spare,  spare  it 
for  the  broken-hearted  friends,  who,  to  life's  end,  will  suffer 
over  and  over  all  that  their  dear  ones  endured.  Pity  the 
mothers  Avho  hear  their  sons'  faint  calls  in  dreams,  who  in 
many  a  weary  night-watch  see  them  pining  and  wasting,  and 
yearn  with  a  lifelong,  unappeasable  yearning  to  have  been 
able  to  soothe  those  forsaken,  lonely  death-beds.  0  man 
or  woman,  if  you  have  pity  to  spare,  spend  it  not  on  Lee  or 
Davis,  —  spend  it  on  their  victims,  on  the  thousands  of 
living  hearts  which  these  men  of  sin  have  doomed  to  an 
anguish  that  will  end  only  with  life  ! 

Blessed  are  the  mothers  whose  sons  passed  in  battle,  —  a 
quick,  a  painless,  a  glorious  death  !  Blessed  in  comparison, 
—  yet  we  weep  for  them.  We  rise  up  and  give  place  at 
sight  of  their  mourning-garments.  We  reverence  the  sanc 
tity  of  their  sorrow.  But  before  this  other  sorrow  we  are 
dumb  in  awful  silence.  We  find  no  words  with  which  to 
console  such  grief.  We  feel  that  our  peace,  our  liberties, 
have  been  bought  at  a  fearful  price,  when  we  think  of  the 
sufferings  of  our  martyred  soldiers.  Let  us  think  of  them. 
It  wras  for  us  they  bore  hunger  and  cold  and  nakedness. 
They  might  have  had  food  and  raiment  and  comforts,  if 
they  would  have  deserted  our  cause,  —  and  they  did  not. 
Cut  off  from  all  communication  with  home  or  friends  or 
brethren,  dragging  on  the  weary  months,  apparently  for 
gotten,  —  still  they  would  not  yield,  they  would  not  fight 
against  us  ;  and  so  for  us  at  last  they  died. 

What  return  can  we  make  them  ?  Peace  has  come,  and 
we  take  up  all  our  blessings  restored  and  brightened ;  but 
if  we  look,  we  shall  see  on  every  blessing  a  bloody  cross. 

When  three  brave  men  broke  through  the  ranks  of  the 
enemy,  to  bring  to  King  David  a  draught  from  the  home 
well,  for  which  he  longed,  the  generous-hearted  prince 
would  not  drink  it;  but  poured  it  out  as  an  offering  before 


448  THK    CHIMNEY-CORNER 

the  Lord ;  for  he  said,  "  Is  not  this  the  blood  of  the  men 
that  went  in  jeopardy  of  their  lives  ?  " 

Thousands  of  noble  hearts  have  been  slowly  consumed  to 
secure  to  us  the  blessings  we  are  rejoicing  in.  We  owe  a 
duty  to  these  our  martyrs,  —  the  only  one  we  can  pay. 

In  every  place,  honored  by  such  a  history  and  example, 
let  a  monument  be  raised  at  the  public  expense,  on  which 
shall  be  inscribed  the  names  of  those  who  died  for  their 
country,  and  the  manner  of  their  death.  Such  monuments 
will  educate  our  young  men  in  heroic  virtue,  and  keep  alive 
to  future  ages  the  flame  of  patriotism.  And  thus,  too,  to 
the  aching  heart  of  bereaved  love  shall  be  given  the  only 
consolation  of  which  its  sorrows  admit,  in  the  reverence 
which  is  paid  to  its  lost  loved  ones. 


OUR  SECOND  GIEL 

OUR  establishment  on  Beacon  Street  had  been  for  some 
days  in  a  revolutionary  state,  owing  to  the  fact  that  our 
second  girl  had  gone  from  us  into  the  holy  estate  of  matri 
mony.  Alice  was  a  pretty,  tidy,  neat-handed  creature,  and, 
like  many  other  blessings  of  life,  so  good  as  to  be  little 
appreciated  while  with  us.  It  was  not  till  she  had  left  us 
that  we  began  to  learn  that  clean  glass,  bright  silver,  spot 
less  and  untumbled  table-linen,  and,  in  short,  all  the  appe 
tizing  arrangements  and  appointments  of  our  daily  meals, 
were  not  always  and  in  all  hands  matters  of  course. 

In  a  day  or  two,  our  silver  began  to  have  the  appearance 
of  old  pewter,  and  our  glass  looked  as  if  nothing  but  muddy 
water  could  be  found.  On  coming  down  to  our  meals,  we 
found  the  dishes  in  all  sorts  of  conversational  attitudes  on 
the  table,  —  the  meat  placed  diagonally,  the  potatoes  cross 
wise,  and  the  other  vegetables  scattered  here  and  there,  — 
while  the  table  itself  stood  rakishly  aslant,  and  wore  the 
air  of  a  table  slightly  intoxicated. 

Our  beautiful  china,  moreover,  began  to  have  little 
chipped  places  in  the  edges,  most  unusual  and  distressing 
to  our  eyes  ;  the  handles  vanished  from  our  teacups,  and 
here  and  there  a  small  mouthful  appeared  to  be  bitten  out 
of  the  nose  of  some  pretty  fancy  pitchers,  which  had  been 
the  delight  of  my  eyes. 

Now,  if  there  is  anything  which  I  specially  affect,  it  is  a 
refined  and  pretty  table  arrangement,  and  at  our  house  for 
years  and  years  such  had  prevailed.  All  of  us  had  rather 
a  weakness  for  china,  and  the  attractions  of  the  fragile 


450  OUR   SECOND   GIRL 

world,  as  presented  in  the  great  crockery-stores,  had  been 
many  times  too  much  for  our  prudence  and  purse.  Conse 
quently  we  had  all  sorts  of  little  domestic  idols  of  the 
breakfast  and  dinner  table,  —  Bohemian-glass  drink  ing-mugs 
of  antique  shape,  lovely  bits  of  biscuit  choicely  moulded 
in  classic  patterns,  beauties,  oddities,  and  quaintnesses  in 
the  way  of  especial  teacups  and  saucers,  devoted  to  different 
members  of  the  family,  wherein  each  took  a  particular  and 
individual  delight.  Our  especial  china  or  glass  pets  of  the 
table  often  started  interesting  conversations  on  the  state  of 
the  plastic  arts  as  applied  to  every-day  life,  and  the  charm 
of  being  encircled,  even  in  the  material  act  of  feeding  our 
mortal  bodies,  with  a  sort  of  halo  of  art  and  beauty. 

All  this  time  none  of  us  ever  thought  in  how  great  de 
gree  our  feeling  for  elegance  and  refinement  owed  its  gratifi 
cation  at  the  hour  of  meals  to  the  care,  the  tidiness,  and 
neat  handling  of  our  now  lost  and  wedded  Alice. 

Nothing  presents  so  forlorn  an  appearance  as  battered 
and  neglected  finery  of  any  kind  ;  and  elegant  pitchers  with 
their  noses  knocked  off,  cut  glass  with  cracked  edges,  and 
fragments  of  artistic  teacups  and  saucers  on  a  tumbled  table 
cloth,  have  a  peculiarly  dismal  appearance.  In  fact,  we 
had  really  occasion  to  wonder  at  the  perfectly  weird  and 
bewitched  effect  which  one  of  our  two  Hibernian  successors 
to  the  pretty  Alice  succeeded  in  establishing  in  our  table 
department.  Every  caprice  in  the  use  and  employment  of 
dishes,  short  of  serving  cream  in  the  gravy-boats  and  using 
the  sugar-bowl  for  pickled  oysters  and  the  cream-pitcher  for 
vinegar,  seemed  possible  and  permissible.  My  horror  was 
completed  one  morning  on  finding  a  china  hen,  artistically 
represented  as  brooding  on  a  nest,  made  to  cover,  not  boiled 
eggs,  but  a  lot  of  greasy  hash,  over  which  she  sat  so  that 
her  head  and  tail  bewilderingly  projected  beyond  the  sides 
of  the  nest,  instead  of  keeping  lengthwise  within  it,  as  a 
respectable  hen  in  her  senses  might  be  expected  to  do. 


OUR   SECOND   GIRL  451 

There  certainly  is  a  great  amount  of  native  vigor  shown  by 
these  untrained  Hibernians  in  always  finding  an  unexpected 
wrong  way  of  doing  the  simplest  thing.  It  quite  enlarges 
one's  ideas  of  human  possibilities. 

In  a  paroxysm  of  vexation,  I  reviled  matrimony  and 
Murphy  O'Connor,  who  had  stolen  our  household  treasure, 
and  further  expressed  my  griefs,  as  elder  sons  are  apt  to  do, 
by  earnest  expostulations  with  the  maternal  officer  on  the 
discouraging  state  of  things  ;  declaring  most  earnestly,  morn 
ing,  noon,  and  night,  that  all  was  going  to  ruin,  that  every 
thing  was  being  spoiled,  that  nothing  was  even  decent,  and 
that,  if  things  went  on  so  much  longer,  I  should  be  obliged 
to  go  out  and  board,  —  by  which  style  of  remark  I  nearly 
drove  that  long-suffering  woman  frantic. 

"  Do  be  reasonable,  Tom/7  said  she.  "  Can  I  make  girls 
to  order  ?  Can  I  do  anything  more  than  try  such  as  apply, 
when  they  seem  to  give  promise  of  success  ?  Delicacy  of 
hand,  neatness,  nicety  of  eye,  are  not  things  likely  to  be 
cultivated  in  the  Irish  boarding-houses  from  which  our  can 
didates  emerge.  What  chance  have  the  most  of  them  had 
to  learn  anything  except  the  most  ordinary  rough  house 
work  ?  A  trained  girl  is  rare  as  a  nugget  of  gold  amid  the 
sands  of  the  washings  ;  but  let  us  persevere  in  trying,  and 
one  will  come  at  last.37 

"  Well,  I  hope,  at  any  rate,  you  have  sent  off  that  Bridget," 
I  said,  in  high  disdain.  "  I  verily  believe,  if  that  girl  stays 
a  week  longer,  I  shall  have  to  leave  the  house." 

"  Compose  yourself,"  said  my  mother  ;  "  Bridget's  bundle 
is  made  up,  and  she  is  going.  1 7m  sorry  for  her  too,  poor 
thing ;  for  she  seemed  anxious  to  keep  the  place." 

At  this  moment  the  doorbell  rang.  "  I  presume  that 's 
the  new  girl  whom  they  have  sent  round  for  me  to  see,"  said 
my  mother. 

I  opened  the  door,  and  there  in  fact  stood  a  girl  dressed 
in  a  neat-fitting  dark  calico,  with  a  straw  bonnet,  simply 


452  OUR    SECOND    GIRL 

tied  with  some  dark  ribbon,  and  a  veil  which  concealed  her 
face. 

"  Is  Mrs.  Seymour  at  home  ?  " 

"  She  is." 

"  I  was  told  that  she  wanted  a  girl." 

"  She  does  ;  will  you  walk  in  ?  " 

I  pique  myself  somewhat  on  the  power  of  judging  char 
acter,  and  there  was  something  about  this  applicant  which 
inspired  hope  ;  so  that,  before  I  introduced  her  into  the 
room,  I  felt  it  necessary  to  enlighten  my  mother  with  a 
little  of  my  wisdom.  I  therefore  whispered  in  her  ear, 
with  the  decisive  tone  of  an  eldest  son,  "  I  think,  mother, 
this  one  will  do  ;  you  had  better  engage  her  at  once." 

"  Have  you  lived  out  much  ? "  said  my  mother,  com 
mencing  the  usual  inquiries. 

"  I  have  not,  ma'am.  I  am  but  lately  come  to  the 
city." 

"  Are  you  Irish  ?  " 

"No,  ma'am  ;  I  am  American." 

"  Have  you  been  accustomed  to  the  care  of  the  table,  — 
silver,  glass,  and  china  ?  " 

"  I  think,  ma'am,  I  understand  what  is  necessary  for 
that." 

All  this  while  the  speaker  remained  standing  with  her 
veil  down  ;  her  answers  seemed  to  be  the  briefest  possible ; 
and  yet,  notwithstanding  the  homely  plainness  of  her  dress, 
there  was  something  about  her  that  impressed  both  my 
mother  and  me  with  an  idea  of  cultivation  and  refinement 
above  her  apparent  station,  —  there  was  a  composure  and 
quiet  decision  in  her  manner  of  speaking  which  produced 
the  same  impression  on  us  both. 

"  What  wages  do  you  expect  ?  "  said  my  mother. 

"  Whatever  you  have  been  accustomed  to  give  to  a  girl 
in  that  place  will  satisfy  me,"  she  said. 

"  There   is   only   one  thing  I  would   like  to  ask,"  she 


OUR   SECOND   GIRL  453 

added,  with  a  slight  hesitation  and  embarrassment  of  man 
ner;  "would  it  be  convenient  for  me  to  have  a  room  by 
myself  ?  " 

I  nodded  to  my  mother  to  answer  in  the  affirmative. 

The  three  girls  who  composed  our  establishment  had 
usually  roomed  in  one  large  apartment,  but  there  was  a 
small  closet  of  a  room  which  I  had  taken  for  books,  fishing- 
rods,  guns,  and  any  miscellaneous  property  of  my  own.  I 
mentally  turned  these  out,  and  devoted  the  room  to  the 
newcomer,  whose  appearance  interested  me. 

And,  as  my  mother  hesitated,  I  remarked,  with  the  as 
sured  tone  of  master  of  the  house,  that  "  certainly  she  could 
have  a  small  room  to  herself." 

"  It  is  all  I  ask,"  she  briefly  answered.  "  In  that  case, 
I  will  come  for  the  same  wages  you  paid  the  last  girl  in  my 
situation." 

"  When  will  you  come  ?  "  said  my  mother. 

"  I  am  ready  to  come  immediately.  I  only  want  time  to 
go  and  order  my  things  to  be  sent  here." 

She  rose  and  left  us,  saying  that  we  might  expect  her 
that  afternoon. 

"  Well,  sir,"  said  my  mother,  "  you  seem  to  have  taken 
it  upon  you  to  settle  this  matter  on  your  own  authority." 

"  My  dear  little  mother,"  said  I,  in  a  patronizing  tone, 
"  I  have  an  instinctive  certainty  that  she  will  do.  I  wanted 
to  make  sure  of  a  prize  for  you." 

"  But  the  single  room." 

"  Never  mind  ;  I  '11  move  all  my  traps  out  of  the  little 
third-story  room.  It 's  my  belief  that  this  girl  or  woman 
has  seen  better  days ;  and  if  she  has,  a  room  to  herself  will 
be  a  necessity  of  her  case,  —  poor  thing  !  " 

"  I  don't  know,"  said  my  mother  hesitatingly.  "  I  never 
wish  to  employ  in  my  service  those  above  their  station,  — 
they  always  make  trouble  ;  and  there  is  something  in  this 
woman's  air  and  manner  and  pronunciation  that  makes  me 


454  OUK   SECOND   GIRL 

feel  as  if  she  had  been  born  and  bred  in  cultivated  so 
ciety." 

"  Supposing  she  has,"  said  I ;  "it 's  quite  evident  that 
she,  for  some  reason,  means  to  conform  to  this  position. 
You  seldom  have  a  girl  apply  for  work  who  conies  dressed 
with  such  severe  simplicity  ;  her  manner  is  retiring,  and 
she  seemed  perfectly  willing  and  desirous  to  undertake  any 
of  the  things  which  you  mentioned  as  among  her  daily 
tasks." 

On  the  afternoon  of  that  day  our  new  assistant  came,  and 
my  mother  was  delighted  with  the  way  she  set  herself  at 
work.  The  china-closet,  desecrated  and  disordered  in  the 
preceding  reigns  of  terror  and  confusion,  immediately  under 
went  a  most  quiet  but  thorough  transformation.  Every 
thing  was  cleaned,  brightened,  and  arranged  with  a  system 
and  thoroughness  which  showed,  as  my  mother  remarked,  a 
good  head  ;  and  all  this  was  done  so  silently  and  quietly  that 
it  seemed  like  magic.  By  the  time  we  came  down  to  break 
fast  the  next  morning,  we  perceived  that  the  reforms  of  our 
new  prime  minister  had  extended  everywhere.  The  dining- 
room  was  clean,  cool,  thoroughly  dusted,  and  freshly  aired  ; 
the  tablecloth  and  napkins  were  smooth  and  clean ;  the 
glass  glittered  like  crystal,  and  the  silver  wore  a  cheerful 
brightness.  Added  to  this  were  some  extra  touches  of 
refinement,  which  I  should  call  table  coquetry.  The  cold 
meat  was  laid  out  with  green  fringes  of  parsley  ;  and  a 
bunch  of  heliotrope,  lemon  verbena,  and  mignonette,  with  a 
fresh  rosebud,  all  culled  from  our  little  back  yard,  stood  in 
a  wineglass  on  my  mother's  waiter. 

"  Well,  Mary,  you  have  done  wonders,"  said  my  mother, 
as  she  took  her  place;  "your  arrangements  restore  appetite 
to  all  of  us." 

Mary  received  our  praises  with  a  gracious  smile,  yet 
with  a  composed  gravity  which  somewhat  puzzled  me.  She 
seemed  perfectly  obliging  and  amiable,  yet  there  was  a 


OUR    SECOND    GIRL  455 

serious  reticence  about  her  that  quite  piqued  my  curiosity. 
I  could  not  help  recurring  to  the  idea  of  a  lady  in  disguise ; 
though  I  scarcely  knew  to  what  circumstance  about  her  I 
could  attach  the  idea.  So  far  from  the  least  effort  to  play 
the  lady,  her  dress  was,  in  homely  plainness,  a  perfect  con 
trast  to  that  of  the  girls  who  had  preceded  her.  It  consisted 
of  strong  dark-blue  stuff,  made  perfectly  plain  to  her  figure, 
with  a  narrow  band  of  white  linen  around  her  throat.  Her 
dark  brown  hair  was  brushed  smoothly  away  from  her  face, 
and  confined  simply  behind  in  a  net ;  there  was  not  the 
slightest  pretension  to  coquetry  in  its  arrangement ;  in  fact, 
the  object  seemed  to  be  to  get  it  snugly  out  of  the  way, 
rather  than  to  make  it  a  matter  of  ornament.  Nevertheless, 
I  could  not  help  remarking  that  there  was  a  good  deal  of  it, 
and  that  it  waved  very  prettily,  notwithstanding  the  care 
that  had  been  taken  to  brush  the  curl  out  of  it. 

She  was  apparently  about  twenty  years  of  age.  Her  face 
was  not  handsome,  but  it  was  a  refined  and  intelligent  one. 
The  skin  had  a  sallow  hue,  which  told  of  ill  health  or  of 
misfortune  ;  there  were  lines  of  trouble  about  the  eye  ;  but 
the  mouth  and  chin  had  that  unmistakable  look  of  firm 
ness  which  speaks  a  person  able  and  resolved  to  do  a  quiet 
battle  with  adverse  fate,  and  to  go  through  to  the  end 
with  whatever  is  needed  to  be  done,  without  fretfulness  and 
without  complaint.  She  had  large,  cool,  gray  eyes,  atten 
tive  and  thoughtful,  and  she  met  the  look  of  any  one  who 
addressed  her  with  an  honest  firmness ;  she  seemed  to  be,  in 
fact,  simply  and  only  interested  to  know  and  to  do  the  work 
she  had  undertaken,  —  but  what  there  might  be  behind  and 
beyond  that  I  could  not  conjecture. 

One  thing  about  her  dress  most  in  contrast  with  that  of 
the  other  servants  was  that  she  evidently  wore  no  crinoline. 
The  exuberance  of  this  article  in  the  toilet  of  our  domestics 
had  become  threatening  of  late,  apparently  requiring  that 
the  kitchens  and  pantries  should  be  torn  down  and  rebuilt. 


456  OUR   SECOND   GIRL 

As  matters  were,  our  three  girls  never  could  be  in  our  kitchen 
at  one  time  without  reelings  and  manoeuvrings  of  their 
apparel  which  much  impeded  any  other  labor,  and  caused 
some  loss  of  temper  ;  and  our  china-closet  was  altogether 
too  small  for  the  officials  who  had  to  wash  the  china  there, 
and  they  were  constantly  at  odds  with  my  mother  for  her 
firmness  in  resisting  their  tendency  to  carry  our  china  and 
silver  to  the  general  melee  of  the  kitchen  sink.  Moreover, 
our  dining-room  not  having  been  constructed  with  an  eye  to 
modern  expansions  of  the  female  toilet,  it  happened  that, 
if  our  table  was  to  be  enlarged  for  guests,  there  arose  seri 
ous  questions  of  the  waiter's  crinoline  to  complicate  the  cal 
culations  ;  and  for  all  these  reasons,  I  was  inclined  to  look 
with  increasing  wonder  on  a  being  in  female  form  who  could 
so  far  defy  the  tyranny  of  custom  as  to  dress  in  a  convenient 
and  comfortable  manner,  adapted  to  the  work  which  she 
undertook  to  perform.  A  good-looking  girl  without  crino 
line  had  a  sort  of  unworldly  freshness  of  air  that  really  con 
stituted  a  charm.  If  it  had  been  a  piece  of  refined  coquetry, 
—  as  certainly  it  was  not,  —  it  could  not  have  been  better 
planned. 

Nothing  could  be  more  perfectly  proper  than  the  de 
meanor  of  this  girl  in  relation  to  all  the  proprieties  of  her 
position.  She  seemed  to  give  her  whole  mind  to  it  with  an 
anxious  exactness  ;  but  she  appeared  to  desire  no  relations 
with  the  family  other  than  those  of  a  mere  business  charac 
ter.  It  was  impossible  to  draw  her  into  conversation.  If 
a  good-natured  remark  was  addressed  to  her  on  any  subject 
such  as  in  kindly  disposed  families  is  often  extended  as  an 
invitation  to  a  servant  to  talk  a  little  with  an  employer, 
Mary  met  it  with  the  briefest  and  gravest  response  that  was 
compatible  with  propriety,  and  with  a  definite  and  marked 
respectfulness  of  demeanor  which  had  precisely  the  effect  of 
throwing  us  all  at  a  distance,  like  ceremonious  politeness  in 
the  intercourse  of  good  society. 


OUR   SECOND   GIRL  457 

"  I  cannot  make  out  our  Mary,"  said  I  to  my  mother  ; 
"  she  is  a  perfect  treasure,  but  who  or  what  do  you  suppose 
she  is  ?  " 

"  I  cannot  tell  you,"  said  my  mother.  "  All  I  know  is, 
she  understands  her  business  perfectly,  and  does  it  exactly ; 
but  she  no  more  belongs  to  the  class  of  common  servants 
than  I  do." 

"  Does  she  associate  with  the  other  girls  ?  " 

"  Not  at  all  —  except  at  meal- times,  and  when  about  her 
work." 

"  I  should  think  that  would  provoke  the  pride  of  sweet 
Erin,"  said  I. 

"  One  would  think  so,"  said  my  mother ;  "  but  she  cer 
tainly  has  managed  her  relations  with  them  with  a  curious 
kind  of  tact.  She  always  treats  them  with  perfect  consid 
eration  and  politeness,  talks  with  them  during  the  times 
that  they  necessarily  are  thrown  together  in  the  most  affable 
and  cheerful  manner,  and  never  assumes  any  airs  of  suprem 
acy  with  them.  Her  wanting  a  room  to  herself  gave  them 
at  first  an  idea  that  she  would  hold  herself  aloof  from  them, 
and  in  fact,  for  the  first  few  days,  there  was  a  subterranean 
fire  in  the  kitchen  ready  to  burst  forth  ;  but  now  all  that  is 
past,  and  in  some  way  or  other,  without  being  in  the  least 
like  any  of  them,  she  has  contrived  to  make  them  her  fast 
friends.  I  found  her  last  night  in  the  kitchen  writing  a 
letter  for  the  cook,  and  the  other  day  she  was  sitting  in  her 
room  trimming  a  bonnet  for  Katy  ;  and  her  opinion  seems 
to  be'  law  in  the  kitchen.  She  seldom  sits  there,  and  spends 
most  of  her  leisure  in  her  own  room,  which  is  as  tidy  as  a 
bee's  cell." 

"  What  is  she  doing  there  ?  " 

"  Reading,  sewing,  and  writing,  as  far  as  I  can  see. 
There  are  a  few  books,  and  a  portfolio,  and  a  small  inkstand 
there,  —  and  a  neat  little  work-basket.  She  is  very  nice 
with  her  needle,  and  obliging  in  putting  her  talents  to  the 


458  OUR   SECOND   GIRL 

service  of  the  other  girls  ;  but  towards  me  she  is  the  most 
perfectly  silent  and  reserved  being  that  one  can  conceive. 
I  can't  make  conversation  with  her  ;  she  keeps  me  off  by  a 
most  rigid  respectfulness  of  demeanor  which  seems  to  say 
that  she  wants  nothing  from  me  but  my  orders.  I  feel 
that  I  could  no  more  ask  her  a  question  about  her  private 
affairs,  than  I  could  ask  one  of  Mrs.  McGregor  in  the  next 
street.  But  then  it  is  a  comfort  to  have  some  one  so  en 
tirely  trustworthy  as  she  is  in  charge  of  all  the  nice  little 
articles  which  require  attention  and  delicate  handling.  She 
is  the  only  girl  I  ever  had  whom  I  could  trust  to  arrange  a 
parlor  and  a  table  without  any  looking  after.  Her  eye  and 
hand,  and  her  ideas,  are  certainly  those  of  a  lady,  whatever 
her  position  may  have  been." 

In  time  our  Mary  became  quite  a  family  institution  for 
us,  seeming  to  fill  a  thousand  little  places  in  the  domestic 
arrangement  where  a  hand  or  an  eye  was  needed.  She  was 
deft  at  mending  glass  and  china,  and  equally  so  at  mending 
all  sorts  of  household  things.  She  darned  the  napkins  and 
tablecloths  in  a  way  that  excited  my  mother's  admiration, 
and  was  always  so  obliging  and  ready  to  offer  her  services 
that,  in  time,  a  resort  to  Mary's  work-basket  and  ever  ready 
needle  became  the  most  natural  thing  in  the  world  to  all  of 
us.  She  seemed  to  have  no  acquaintance  in  the  city,  never 
went  out  visiting,  received  no  letters,  —  in  short,  seemed 
to  live  a  completely  isolated  life,  and  to  dwell  in  her  own 
thoughts  in  her  own  solitary  little  room. 

By  that  talent  for  systematic  arrangement  which  she  pos 
sessed,  she  secured  for  herself  a  good  many  hours  to  spend 
there.  My  mother,  seeing  her  taste  for  reading,  offered  her 
the  use  of  our  books  ;  and  one  volume  after  another  spent 
its  quiet  week  or  fortnight  in  her  room,  and  returned  to  our 
shelves  in  due  time.  They  were  mostly  works  of  solid 
information,  —  history,  travels,  —  and  a  geography  and 
atlas  which  had  formed  part  of  the  school  outfit  of  one  of 


OUR   SECOND   GIRL  459 

the  yoimger  children  she  seemed  interested  to  retain  for 
some  time.  "It  is  my  opinion/'  said  my  mother,  "that  she 
is  studying,  —  perhaps  with  a  view  to  getting  some  better 
situation." 

"  Pray  keep  her  with  us,"  said  I,  "  if  you  can.  Why 
don't  you  raise  her  wages  ?  You  know  that  she  does  more 
than  any  other  girl  ever  did  before  in  her  place,  and  is  so 
trustworthy  that  she  is  invaluable  to  us.  Persons  of  her 
class  are  worth  higher  wages  than  common  uneducated 
servants." 

My  mother  accordingly  did  make  a  handsome  addition  to 
Mary's  wages,  and  by  the  time  she  had  been  with  us  a  year 
the  confidence  which  her  quiet  manner  had  inspired  was 
such  that,  if  my  mother  wished  to  be  gone  for  a  day  or 
two,  the  house,  with  all  that  was  in  it,  was  left  trustingly 
in  Mary's  hands,  as  with  a  sort  of  housekeeper.  She  was 
charged  with  all  the  last  directions,  as  well  as  the  keys  to 
the  jellies,  cakes,  and  preserves,  with  discretionary  power  as 
as  to  their  use  ;  and  yet,  for  some  reason,  such  was  the 
ascendency  she  contrived  to  keep  over  her  Hibernian  friends 
in  the  kitchen,  all  this  confidence  evidently  seemed  to  them 
quite  as  proper  as  to  us. 

"  She  ain't  quite  like  us,"  said  Biddy  one  day,  mysteri 
ously,  as  she  looked  after  her.  "  She  's  seen  better  days,  or 
I  'm  mistaken  ;  but  she  don't  take  airs  on  her.  She  knows 
how  to  take  the  bad  luck  quiet  like,  and  do  the  best  she 
can." 

"  Has  she  ever  told  you  anything  of  herself,  Biddy  ? " 
said  my  mother. 

"  Me  ?  No.  It 's  a  quiet  tongue  she  keeps  in  her  head. 
She  is  ready  enough  to  do  good  turns  for  us,  and  to  smooth 
out  our  ways,  and  hear  our  stories,  but  it 's  close  in  her  own 
affairs  she  is.  Maybe  she  don't  like  to  be  talkin',  when 
talkin'  does  no  good,  — poor  soul !  " 

Matters   thus  went  on,  and   I  amused  myself   now  and 


4GO  OUR    SECOND    GIRL 

then  with  speculating  about  Mary.  I  would  sometimes  go 
to  her  to  ask  some  of  those  little  charities  of  the  needle 
which  our  sex  are  always  needing  from  feminine  hands  ; 
but  never,  in  the  course  of  any  of  these  little  transactions, 
could  I  establish  the  slightest  degree  of  confidential  commu 
nication.  If  she  sewed  on  a  shirt-button,  she  did  it  with  as 
abstracted  an  air  as  if  my  arm  were  a  post  which  she  was 
required  to  handle,  and  not  the  arm  of  a  good-looking  youth 
of  twenty -five,  —  as  I  fondly  hoped  I  was.  And  certain 
remarks  which  I  once  addressed  to  her  in  regard  to  her 
studies  and  reading  in  her  own  apartment  were  met  with 
that  cool,  wide-open  gaze  of  her  calm  gray  eyes,  that  seemed 
to  say,  "  Pray,  what  is  that  to  your  purpose,  sir  ?  "  and 
she  merely  answered,  "  Is  there  anything  else  that  you 
would  like  me  to  do,  sir  ?  "  with  a  marked  deference  that 
was  really  defiant. 

But  one  day  I  fancied  I  had  got  hold  of  a  clue.  I 
was  standing  in  our  lower  front  hall,  when  I  saw  young 
McPherson,  whom  I  used  to  know  in  New  York,  coming 
up  the  doorsteps. 

At  the  moment  that  he  rung  the  doorbell,  our  Mary, 
who  had  seen  him  from  the  chamber  window,  suddenly 
grew  pale,  and  said  to  my  mother,  "  Please,  ma'am,  will 
you  be  so  good  as  to  excuse  my  going  to  the  door  ?  I  feel 
faint." 

My  mother  spoke  over  the  banisters,  and  I  opened  the 
door,  and  let  in  McPherson. 

He  and  I  were  jolly  together,  as  old  classmates  are  wont 
to  be,  and  orders  were  given  to  lay  a  plate  for  him  at 
dinner. 

Mary  prepared  the  service  with  her  usual  skill  and  care, 
but  pleaded  that  her  illness  increased  so  that  it  would  be 
impossible  for  her  to  wait  on  table.  Now,  nobody  in  the 
house  thought  there  was  anything  peculiar  about  this  but 
myself.  My  mother,  indeed,  had  noticed  that  Mary's  faint- 


OUR   SECOND   GIRL  461 

ness  had  come  on  very  suddenly,  as  she  looked  out  on  the 
street ;  but  it  was  I  who  suggested  to  her  that  McPherson 
might  have  some  connection  with  it. 

a  Depend  upon  it,  mother,  he  is  somebody  whom  she  has 
known  in  her  former  life,  and  does  n't  wish  to  meet,"  said  I. 

"  Nonsense,  Tom  ;  you  are  always  getting  up  mysteries, 
and  fancying  romances." 

Nevertheless,  I  took  a  vicious  pleasure  in  experimenting 
on  the  subject  ;  and  therefore,  a  day  or  two  after,  when  I 
had  got  Mary  fairly  within  eye-range,  as  she  waited  on 
table,  I  remarked  to  my  mother  carelessly,  "  By  the  bye,  the 
McPhersons  are  coming  to  Boston  to  live." 

There  was  a  momentary  jerk  of  Mary's  hand,  as  she  was 
filling  a  tumbler,  and  then  I  could  see  the  restraint  of  self- 
command  passing  all  over  her.  I  had  hit  something,  I 
knew  ;  so  I  pursued  my  game. 

"  Yes,"  I  continued,  "  Jim  is  here  to  look  at  houses ;  he 
is  thinking  strongly  of  one  in  the  next  block." 

There  was  a  look  of  repressed  fear  and  distress  on  Mary's 
face  as  she  hastily  turned  away,  and  made  an  errand  into 
the  china-closet. 

"  I  have  found  a  clue,"  I  said  to  my  mother  triumph 
antly,  going  to  her  room  after  dinner.  "  Did  you  notice 
Mary's  agitation  when  I  spoke  of  the  McPhersons  coming 
to  Boston  ?  By  Jove  !  but  the  girl  is  plucky,  though  ;  it 
was  the  least  little  start,  and  in  a  minute  she  had  her 
visor  down  and  her  armor  buckled.  This  certainly  becomes 
interesting." 

"Tom,  I  certainly  must  ask  you  what  business  it  is  of 
yours,"  said  my  mother,  settling  back  into  the  hortatory 
attitude  familiar  to  mothers.  "  Supposing  the  thing  is  as 
you  think,  —  suppose  that  Mary  is  a  girl  of  refinement 
and  education,  who,  from  some  unfortunate  reason,  has  no 
resource  but  her  present  position,  —  why  should  you  hunt 
her  out  of  it  ?  If  she  is,  as  you  think,  a  lady,  there  is  the 


462  OUR   SECOND   GIRL 

strongest  reason  why  a  gentleman  should  respect  her  feel 
ings.  I  fear  the  result  of  all  this  restless  prying  and  inter 
meddling  of  yours  will  be  to  drive  her  away  ;  and  really, 
now  I  have  had  her,  I  don't  know  how  I  ever  could  do 
without  her.  People  talk  of  female  curiosity,"  said  my 
mother,  with  a  slightly  belligerent  air  ;  "  I  never  found  but 
men  had  fully  as  much  curiosity  as  women.  Now,  what 
will  become  of  us  all  if  your  restlessness  about  this  should 
be  the  means  of  Mary's  leaving  us  ?  You  know  the  per 
fectly  dreadful  times  we  had  before  she  came,  and  I  don't 
know  anybody  who  has  less  patience  to  bear  such  things 
than  you." 

In  short,  my  mother  was  in  that  positive  state  of  mind 
which  is  expressed  by  the  colloquial  phrase  of  being  on 
her  high  horse.  I  —  as  the  male  part  of  creation  always 
must  in  such  cases  —  became  very  meek  and  retiring,  and 
promised  to  close  my  eyes  and  ears,  and  not  dream,  or 
think,  or  want  to  know,  anything  which  it  was  not  agreeable 
to  Mary  and  my  mother  that  I  should.  I  would  not  look 
towards  the  doorbell,  nor  utter  a  word  about  the  McPher- 
sons,  who,  by  the  bye,  decided  to  take  the  house  in  our 
neighborhood. 

But  though  I  was  as  exemplary  as  one  of  the  saints, 
it  did  no  good.  Mary,  for  some  reasons  known  to  herself, 
became  fidgety,  nervous,  restless,  and  had  frequent  head 
aches  and  long  crying  spells  in  her  own  private  apartment, 
after  the  manner  of  women  when  something  is  the  matter 
with  them. 

My  mother  was,  as  she  always  is  with  every  creature  in 
her  employ,  maternal  and  sympathetic,  and  tried  her  very 
best  to  get  into  her  confidence. 

Mary  only  confessed  to  feeling  a  little  unwell,  and  hinted 
obscurely  that  perhaps  she  should  be  obliged  to  leave  the 
place.  But  it  was  quite  evident  that  her  leaving  was  con 
nected  with  the  near  advent  of  the  McPhersons  in  the  next 


OUR   SECOND   GIRL  463 

block ;  for  I  observed  that  she  always  showed  some  little 
irrepressible  signs  of  nervousness  whenever  that  subject 
was  incidentally  alluded  to.  Finally,  on  the  day  that  their 
furniture  began  to  arrive,  and  to  provide  abundant  material 
for  gossip  and  comment  to  the  other  members  of  the  kitchen 
cabinet,  Mary's  mind  appeared  suddenly  made  up.  She 
came  into  my  mother's  room  looking  as  a  certain  sort  of 
women  do  when  they  have  made  a  resolution  which  they 
mean  to  stand  by,  —  very  pale,  very  quiet,  and  very  decided. 
She  asked  to  see  my  mother  alone,  and  in  that  interview 
she  simply  expressed  gratitude  for  all  her  kindness  to  her, 
but  said  that  circumstances  would  oblige  her  to  go  to  New 
York. 

My  mother  now  tried  her  best  to  draw  from  her  her  his 
tory,  whatever  that  might  be.  She  spoke  with  tact  and  ten 
derness,  and  with  the  respect  due  from  one  human  being  to 
another ;  for  my  mother  always  held  that  every  soul  has  its 
own  inviolable  private  door  which  it  has  a  right  to  keep 
closed,  and  at  which  even  queens  and  duchesses,  if  they 
wish  to  enter,  must  knock  humbly  and  reverently. 

Mary  was  almost  overcome  by  her  kindness.  She  thanked 
her  over  and  over ;  at  times  my  mother  said  she  looked  at 
her  wistfully,  as  if  on  the  very  point  of  speaking,  and  then, 
quietly  gathering  herself  within  herself,  she  remained  silent. 
All  that  could  be  got  from  her  was,  that  it  was  necessary 
for  her  hereafter  to  live  in  New  York. 

The  servants  in  the  kitchen,  with  the  warm-heartedness 
of  their  race,  broke  out  into  a  perfect  Irish  howl  of  sorrow ; 
and  at  the  last  moment,  Biddy,  our  fat  cook,  fell  on  her 
neck  and  lifted  up  her  voice  and  wept,  almost  smothering 
her  with  her  tumultuous  embraces  ;  and  the  whole  party  of 
them  would  go  with  her  to  the  New  York  station,  one  car 
rying  her  shawl,  another  her  hand-bag  and  parasol,  with 
emulous  affection  ;  and  so  our  very  pleasant  and  desirable 
second  girl  disappeared,  and  we  saw  her  no  more. 


464  OUR   SECOND   GIRL 

Six  months  after  this,  when  our  Mary  had  become  only 
a  memory  of  the  past,  I  went  to  spend  a  week  or  two  in 
Newport,  and  took,  among  other  matters  and  things,  a  let 
ter  of  introduction  to  Mrs.  Mclntyre,  a  Scotch  lady,  who 
had  just  bought  a  pretty  cottage  there,  and,  as  my  friend 
who  gave  it  told  me,  would  prove  an  interesting  acquaint 
ance. 

"  She  has  a  pretty  niece,"  said  he,  "  who  I  'm  told  is 
heiress  to  her  property,  and  is  called  a  very  nice  girl." 

So,  at  the  proper  time,  I  lounged  in  one  morning,  and 
found  a  very  charming,  cosy,  home-like  parlor,  arranged 
with  all  those  little  refined  touches  and  artistic  effects  by 
which  people  of  certain  tastes  and  habits  at  once  recognize 
each  other  in  all  parts  of  the  world,  as  by  the  tokens  of 
freemasonry.  I  felt  perfectly  acquainted  with  Mrs.  Mcln 
tyre  from  the  first  glance  at  her  parlor,  —  where  the  books, 
the  music,  the  birds,  the  flowers,  and  that  everlasting  va 
riety  of  female  small- work  prepared  me  for  a  bright,  chatty, 
easy-going,  home-loving  kind  of  body,  such  as  I  found  Mrs. 
Mclntyre  to  be.  She  was,  as  English  and  Scotch  ladies  are 
apt  to  be,  very  oddly  dressed  in  very  nice  and  choice  arti 
cles.  It  takes  the  eye  of  the  connoisseur  to  appreciate  these 
oddly  dressed  Englishwomen.  They  are  like  antique  china  ; 
but  a  discriminating  eye  soon  sees  the  real  quality  that  un 
derlies  their  quaint  adornment.  Mrs.  Mclntyre  was  scrupu 
lously,  exquisitely  neat.  All  her  articles  of  dress  were  of 
the  choicest  quality.  The  yellow  and  tumbled  lace  that  was 
fussed  about  her  neck  and  wrists  might  have  been  the  heir 
loom  of  a  countess ;  her  satin  gown,  though  very  short  and 
very  scanty,  was  of  a  fabulous  richness  ;  and  the  rings  that 
glittered  on  her  withered  hands  were  of  the  fashion  of  two 
centuries  ago,  but  of  wonderful  brilliancy. 

She  was  very  gracious  in  her  reception,  as  my  letter  was 
from  an  old  friend,  and  said  many  obliging  things  of  me  ; 
so  I  was  taken  at  once  to  her  friendship,  with  the  frankness 


OUR   SECOND   GIRL  465 

characteristic  of  people  of  her  class  when  they  make  up  their 
minds  to  know  you  at  all. 

"  I  must  introduce  you  to  my  Mary,"  she  said ;  "  she 
has  just  gone  into  the  garden  to  cut  flowers  for  the  vases." 

In   a  moment  more  "  Mary  "  entered  the  room,  with  a 

little  white  apron  full  of  flowers,  and  a  fresh  bloom  on  her 

cheeks  ;  and  I  was  —  as  the  reader  has  already  anticipated 

—  to  my  undisguised   amazement,   formally  introduced  to 

Miss  Mary  Mclntyre,  our  second  girl. 

Of  all  things  for  which  I  consider  women  admirable,  there 
is  no  trait  which  fills  me  with  such  positive  awe  as  their 
social  tact  and  self-command.  Evidently  this  meeting  was 
quite  as  unexpected  to  Mary  as  to  me  j  but  except  for  a 
sudden  flash  of  amused  astonishment  in  the  eyes,  and  a  be 
coming  flush  of  complexion,  she  met  me  as  any  thorough 
bred  young  lady  meets  a  young  man  properly  presented  by 
her  maternal  guardian. 

For  my  part,  I  had  one  of  those  dreamy  periods  of  exist 
ence  in  which  people  doubt  whether  they  are  awake  or 
asleep.  The  world  seemed  all  turning  topsy-turvy.  I  was 
filled  with  curiosity,  which  I  could  with  difficulty  keep 
within  the  limits  of  conventional  propriety. 

"  I  see,  Mr.  Seymour,  that  you  are  very  much  aston 
ished,"  said  Mary  to  me,  when  Mrs.  Mclntyre  had  left  the 
room  to  give  some  directions  to  the  servants. 

"  Upon  my  word,"  said  I,  "  I  never  was  more  so  ;  I  feel 
as  if  I  were  in  the  midst  of  a  fairy  tale." 

"  Nothing  so  remarkable  as  that,"  she  said.  lt  But  since 
I  saw  you,  a  happy  change,  as  I  need  not  tell  you  now,  has 
come  over  my  life  through  the  coming  of  my  mother's  sister 
to  America.  When  my  mother  died,  my  aunt  was  in  India. 
The  letters  that  I  addressed  to  her  in  Scotland  were  a  long 
time  in  reaching  her,  and  then  it  took  a  long  time  for  her 
to  wind  up  her  affairs  there,  and  find  her  way  to  this  coun 
try." 


466  OUR   SECOND   GIRL 

"  But/'  said  I,  "  what  could  "  — 

"  What  could  induce  me  to  do  as  I  did  ?  Well,  I  knew 
your  mother's  character,  —  no  matter  how.  I  needed  a 
support  and  protection,  and  I  resolved  for  a  time  to  put  my 
self  under  her  wing.  I  knew  that  in  case  of  any  real  trou 
ble  I  should  find  in  her  a  true  friend  and  a  safe  adviser,  and 
I  hoped  to  earn  her  esteem  and  confidence  by  steadily  doing 
my  duty.  Some  other  time,  perhaps,  I  will  tell  you  more," 
she  added. 

The  return  of  Mrs.  Mclntyre  put  an  end  to  our  private 
communication,  but  she  insisted,  with  true  old-world  hospi 
tality,  on  my  remaining  to  dinner. 

Here  I  was  precipitated  into  a  romance  at  once.  Mary 
had  just  enough  of  that  perverse  feminine  pleasure  in  teas 
ing  to  keep  my  interest  alive.  The  fact  was,  she  saw  me 
becoming  entangled  from  day  to  day  without  any  more  mis 
givings  of  conscience  than  the  celebrated  spider  of  the  poem 
felt  when  she  invited  the  fly  to  walk  into  her  parlor. 

Mrs.  Mclntyre  took  me  in  a  very  marked  way  into  her 
good  graces,  and  I  had  every  opportunity  to  ride,  walk, 
sketch,  and  otherwise  to  attend  upon  Mary  ;  and  Mary  was 
gracious  also,  but  so  quietly  and  discreetly  mistress  of  her 
self  that  I  could  not  for  the  life  of  me  tell  what  to  make  of 
her.  There  were  all  sorts  of  wonders  and  surmises  boiling 
up  within  me.  What  was  it  about  McPherson  ?  Was  there 
anything  there  ?  Was  Mary  engaged  ?  Or  was  there  any 
old  affair  ?  etc.,  etc.  Not  that  it  was  any  business  of  mine  ; 
but  then  a  fellow  likes  to  know  his  ground  before  —  Be 
fore  what  ?  I  thought  to  myself,  and  that  unknown  WHAT 
every  day  assumed  new  importance  in  my  eyes.  Mary  had 
many  admirers.  Her  quiet,  easy,  self-possessed  manners, 
her  perfect  tact  and  grace,  always  made  her  a  favorite  ;  but 
I  could  not  help  hoping  that  between  her  and  me  there  was 
that  confidential  sense  of  a  mutually  kept  secret  which  it  is 
delightful  to  share  with  the  woman  you  wish  to  please. 


OUR    SECOND    GIRL  467 

Why  won't  women  sometimes  enlighten  a  fellow  a  little 
in  this  dark  valley  that  lies  between  intimate  acquaintance 
and  the  awful  final  proposal  ?  To  be  sure,  there  are  kind 
souls  who  will  come  more  than  halfway  to  meet  you,  but 
they  are  always  sure  to  be  those  you  don't  want  to  meet. 
The  woman  you  want  is  always  as  reticent  as  a  nut,  and 
leaves  you  the  whole  work  of  this  last  dread  scene  without 
a  bit  of  help  on  her  part.  To  be  sure,  she  smiles  on  you ; 
but  what  of  that  ?  You  see  she  smiles  also  on  Tom,  Dick, 
and  Harry. 

"  Bright  as  the  sun  her  eyes  the  gazers  strike  ; 
And,  like  the  sun,  they  shine  on  all  alike." 

I  fought  out  a  battle  of  two  or  three  weeks  with  my  fair 
foe,  trying  to  get  in  advance  some  hint  from  her  as  to  what 
she  would  do  with  me  if  I  put  myself  at  her  mercy.  No 
use.  Our  sex  may  as  well  give  up  first  as  last  before  one 
of  these  quiet,  resolved,  little  pieces  of  femininity,  who  are 
perfect  mistresses  of  all  the  peculiar  weapons,  defensive  and 
offensive,  of  womanhood.  There  was  nothing  for  it  but  to 
surrender  at  discretion ;  but  when  I  had  done  this,  I  was 
granted  all  the  honors  of  war.  Mrs.  Mclntyre  received  me 
with  an  old-fashioned  maternal  blessing,  and  all  was  as 
happy  as  possible. 

"  And  now,"  said  Mary,  "  I  suppose,  sir,  you  will  claim 
a  right  to  know  all  about  me." 

"  Something  of  the  sort,"  I  said  complacently. 

"  I  know  you  have  been  dying  of  curiosity  ever  since  I 
was  waiting  behind  your  lordship's  chair  at  your  mother's. 
I  knew  you  suspected  something  then,  —  confess  now." 

"  But  what  could  have  led  you  there  ?  " 

"  Just  hear.  My  mother,  who  was  Mrs.  Mclntyre's  sister, 
had  by  a  first  marriage  only  myself.  Shortly  after  my 
father's  death,  she  married  a  widower  with  several  children. 
As  long  as  she  lived,  I  never  knew  what  want  or  care  or 
trouble  was  ;  but  just  as  I  was  entering  upon  my  seventeenth 


468  OUK    SECOND    GIRL 

year  she  died.  A  year  after  her  death,  my  stepfather,  who 
was  one  of  those  men  devoted  to  matrimony  at  all  hazards, 
married  another  woman,  by  whom  he  had  children. 

"  In  a  few  years  more,  he  died  ;  and  his  affairs,  on  exam 
ination,  proved  to  be  in  a  very  bad  state  ;  there  was,  in  fact, 
scarcely  anything  for  us  to  live  on.  Our  stepmother  had  a 
settlement  from  her  brother.  The  two  other  daughters  of 
my  father  were  married,  and  went  to  houses  of  their  own ; 
and  I  was  left,  related  really  to  nobody,  without  property 
and  without  home. 

"  I  suppose  hundreds  of  young  girls  are  from  one  reason 
or  other  left  just  in  this  way,  and  have,  without  any  previ 
ous  preparation  in  their  education  and  habits,  to  face  the 
question,  How  can  I  get  a  living  ? 

"  I  assure  you  it  is  a  serious  question  for  a  young  girl 
who  has  grown  up  in  the  easy  manner  in  which  I  had.  My 
stepfather  had  always  been  a  cheery,  kindly,  generous  man, 
one  of  those  who  love  to  see  people  enjoy  themselves,  and 
to  have  things  done  handsomely,  and  had  kept  house  in  a 
free,  abundant,  hospitable  manner  ;  so  that  when  I  came  to 
look  myself  over  in  relation  to  the  great  uses  of  life,  I  could 
make  out  very  little  besides  expensive  tastes  and  careless 
habits. 

"  I  had  been  to  the  very  best  schools,  but  then  I  had 
studied,  as  most  girls  in  easy  circumstances  do,  without  a 
thought  of  using  my  knowledge  for  any  practical  purpose. 
I  could  speak  very  fair  English ;  but  how  I  did  it,  or  why, 
I  didn't  know,  —  all  the  technical  rules  of  grammar  had 
passed  from  my  head  like  a  dream.  I  could  play  a  little  on 
the  piano,  and  sing  a  few  songs  ;  but  I  did  not  know  enough 
of  music  to  venture  to  propose  myself  as  a  teacher ;  and  so 
with  every  other  study.  All  the  situations  of  profit  in  the 
profession  of  teaching  are  now  crowded  and  blocked  by  girls 
who  have  been  studying  for  that  express  object,  —  and  what 
could  I  hope  among  them  ? 


OUll   SECOND   GIRL  4G9 

"  My  mother-in-law  was  a  smart,  enterprising,  driving 
woman  of  the  world,  who  told  all  her  acquaintance  that,  of 
course,  she  should  give  me  a  home,  although  I  was  no  kind 
of  relation  to  her,  and  who  gave  me  to  understand  that  I 
was  under  infinite  obligations  to  her  on  this  account,  and 
must  pay  for  the  privilege  by  making  myself  generally  use 
ful.  I  soon  found  that  this  meant  doing  a  servant's  work 
without  wages.  During  six  months  I  filled,  I  may  say,  the 
place  of  a  seamstress  and  nursery  governess  to  some  very 
ungoverned  children,  varying  with  occasional  weeks  of  ser 
vant's  work,  when  either  the  table  girl  or  the  cook  left  a 
place  vacant.  For  all  this  I  received  my  board,  and  some 
cast-off  dresses  and  underclothes  to  make  over  for  myself. 
I  was  tired  of  this,  and  begged  my  stepmother  to  find  me 
some  place  where  I  could  earn  my  own  living.  She  was 
astonished  and  indignant  at  the  demand.  When  Providence 
had  provided  me  a  good  home,  under  respectable  protection, 
she  said,  why  should  I  ask  to  leave  it  ?  For  her  part,  she 
thought  the  situation  of  a  young  lady  making  herself  gener 
ally  useful  in  domestic  life,  in  the  family  of  her  near  con 
nections,  was  a  delightful  one.  She  had  no  words  to  say 
how  much  more  respectable  and  proper  it  was  thus  to  live 
in  the  circle  of  family  usefulness  and  protection,  than  to  go 
out  in  the  world  looking  for  employment. 

"  I  did  not  suggest  to  her  that  the  chief  difference  in  the 
cases  would  be,  that  in  a  hired  situation  I  should  have  regu 
lar  wages  and  regular  work  ;  whereas  in  my  present  position 
it  was  irregular  work,  and  no  wages. 

"  Her  views  on  the  subject  were  perhaps  somewhat  be 
clouded  by  the  extreme  convenience  she  found  in  being  able 
to  go  into  company,  and  to  range  about  the  city  at  all  hours, 
unembarrassed  by  those  family  cares  which  generally  fall  to 
the  mistress,  but  which  her  views  of  what  constituted  general 
usefulness  devolved  upon  me. 

"  I  had  no  retirement,  no  leisure,  no  fixed  place  anywhere. 


470  OUR   SECOND   GIRL 

My  bed  was  in  the  nursery,  where  the  children  felt  always 
free  to  come  and  go ;  and  even  this  I  was  occasionally  re 
quested  to  resign,  to  share  the  couch  of  the  housemaid,  when 
sickness  in  the  family  or  a  surplus  of  guests  caused  us  to  be 
crowded  for  room. 

"I  grew  very  unhappy,  my  health  failed,  and  the  demands 
upon  me  were  entirely  beyond  my  strength,  and  without  any 
consideration.  The  doer  of  all  the  odds  and  ends  in  a  fam 
ily  has  altogether  the  most  work  and  least  praise  of  any,  as 
I  discovered  to  my  cost.  I  found  one  thing  after  another 
falling  into  my  long  list  of  appointed  duties,  by  a  regular 
progress.  Thus  first  it  would  be,  '  Mary,  won't  you  see  to 
the  dusting  of  the  parlors?  for  Bridget  is'  —  etc.,  etc.;  this 
would  be  the  form  for  a  week  or  two,  and  then,  {  Mary,  have 
you  dusted  the  parlors  ? '  and  at  last,  '  Mary,  why  have  you 
not  dusted  the  parlors  ?  ' 

"  As  I  said,  I  never  studied  anything  to  practical  advan 
tage  ;  and  though  I  had  been  through  arithmetic  and  algebra, 
I  had  never  made  any  particular  use  of  my  knowledge.  But 
now,  under  the  influence  of  misfortune,  my  thoughts  took 
an  arithmetical  turn.  By  inquiring  among  the  servants,  I 
found  that,  in  different  families  in  the  neighborhood,  girls 
were  receiving  three  dollars  a  week  for  rendering  just  such 
services  as  mine.  Here  was  a  sum  of  a  hundred  and  fifty- 
six  dollars  yearly,  in  ready  money,  put  into  their  hands, 
besides  their  board,  the  privilege  of  knowing  their  work 
exactly,  and  having  a  control  of  their  own  time  when  cer 
tain  definite  duties  were  performed.  Compared  with  what 
I  was  doing  and  receiving,  this  was  riches  and  ease  and 
rest. 

"  After  all,  I  thought  to  myself,  why  should  not  I  find 
some  respectable,  superior,  motherly  woman,  and  put  myself 
under  her  as  a  servant,  make  her  my  friend  by  good  con 
duct,  and  have  some  regular  hours  and  some  definite  in 
come,  instead  of  wearing  out  my  life  in  service  without  pay  ? 


OUR   SECOND   GIRL  471 

Nothing  stood  in  my  way  but  the  traditionary  shadow  of 
gentility,  and  I  resolved  it  should  not  stop  me. 

"  Years  before,  when  I  was  only  eight  or  ten  years  old, 
I  had  met  your  mother  with  your  family  at  the  seaside, 
where  my  mother  took  me.  I  had  seen  a  great  deal  of  her, 
and  knew  all  about  her.  I  remembered  well  her  habitual 
consideration  for  the  nurses  and  servants  in  her  employ.  I 
knew  her  address  in  Boston,  and  I  resolved  to  try  to  find  a 
refuge  in  her  family.  And  so  there  is  my  story.  I  left  a 
note  with  my  stepmother,  saying  that  I  was  going  to  seek 
independent  employment,  and  then  went  to  Boston  to  your 
house.  There  I  hoped  to  find  a  quiet  asylum,  —  at  least, 
till  I  could  hear  from  my  aunt  in  Scotland.  The  delay  of 
hearing  from  her  during  those  two  years  at  your  house  often 
made  me  low-spirited." 

"  But  what  made  you  so  afraid  of  McPherson  ?  "  said  I 
nervously.  "  I  remember  your  faintness,  and  all  that,  the 
day  he  called.'7 

"  Oh,  that  ?  Why,  it  was  merely  this,  —  they  were  on 
intimate  visiting  terms  with  my  mother-in-law,  and  I  knew 
that  it  would  be  all  up  with  my  plans  if  they  were  to  be 
often  at  the  house." 

"  Why  did  n't  you  tell  my  mother  ?  "  said  I. 

"  I  did  think  of  it,  but  then"  She  gave  me  a  curious 
glance. 

"  But  what,  Mary  ?  " 

"  Well,  I  could  see  plainly  enough  that  there  were  no 
secrets  between  you  and  her,  and  I  did  not  wish  to  take  so 
fine  a  young  gentleman  into  my  confidence,"  said  Mary. 
"  You  will  observe  I  was  not  out  seeking  flirtations,  but  an 
honest  independence." 

My  mother  was  apprised  of  our  engagement  in  due  form, 
and  came  to  Newport,  all  innocence,  to  call  on  Miss  Mclntyre, 


472  OUR   SECOND   GIRL 

her  intended  daughter-in-law.     Her  astonishment  at  the  mo 
ment  of  introduction  was  quite  satisfactory  to  me. 

For  the  rest,  Mary's  talents  in  making  a  home  agreeable 
have  had  since  then  many  years  of  proof  ;  and  where  any 
of  the  little  domestic  chasms  appear  which  are  formed  by 
the  shifting  nature  of  the  American  working-class,  she  al 
ways  slides  into  the  place  with  a  quiet  grace,  and  reminds 
me,  with  a  humorous  twinkle  of  the  eye,  that  she  is  used 
to  being  second  girl. 


A  SCHOLAR'S  ADVENTURES  IN  THE  COUNTRY 

"  IF  we  could  only  live  in  the  country,"  said  my  wife, 
"  how  much  easier  it  would  be  to  live  !  " 

"  And  how  much  cheaper  !  "  said  I. 

"  To  have  a  little  place  of  our  own,  and  raise  our  own 
things  !  "  said  my  wife.  "  Dear  me  !  I  am  heartsick  when  I 
think  of  the  old  place  at  home,  and  father's  great  garden. 
What  peaches  and  melons  we  used  to  have  !  what  green 
peas  and  corn  !  Now  one  has  to  buy  every  cent's  worth  of 
these  things  —  and  how  they  taste  !  Such  wilted,  misera 
ble  corn  !  Such  peas  !  Then,  if  we  lived  in  the  country, 
we  should  have  our  own  cow,  and  milk  and  cream  in  abun 
dance  ;  our  own  hens  and  chickens.  We  could  have  cus 
tard  and  ice-cream  every  day." 

"  To  say  nothing  of  the  trees  and  flowers,  and  all  that," 
said  I. 

The  result  of  this  little  domestic  duet  was  that  my  wife 
and  I  began  to  ride  about  the  city  of  -  -  to  look  up  some 
pretty,  interesting  cottage,  where  our  visions  of  rural  bliss 
might  be  realized.  Country  residences,  near  the  city,  we 
found  to  bear  rather  a  high  price  ;  so  that  it  was  no  easy 
matter  to  find  a  situation  suitable  to  the  length  of  our  purse  ; 
till,  at  last,  a  judicious  friend  suggested  a  happy  expedient. 

"  Borrow  a  few  hundred,"  he  said,  "and  give  your  note ; 
you  can  save  enough,  very  soon,  to  make  the  difference. 
When  you  raise  everything  you  eat,  you  know  it  will  make 
your  salary  go  a  wonderful  deal  further." 

"  Certainly  it  will,"  said  I.  "  And  what  can  be  more 
beautiful  than  to  buy  places  by  the  simple  process  of  giving 
one's  note  ?  —  't  is  so  neat,  and  handy,  and  convenient !  " 


474    A  SCHOLAR'S  ADVENTURES  IN  THE  COUNTRY 

"  Why,"  pursued  my  friend,  "  there  is  Mr.  B.,  my  next- 
door  neighbor  —  't  is  enough  to  make  one  sick  of  life  in  the 
city  to  spend  a  week  out  on  his  farm.  Such  princely  living 
as  one  gets  !  And  he  assures  me  that  it  costs  him  very 
little  —  scarce  anything  perceptible,  in  fact." 

"Indeed  !  "  said  I  ;   "few  people  can  say  that." 

"  Why,"  said  my  friend,  "  he  has  a  couple  of  peach-trees 
for  every  month,  from  June  till  frost,  that  furnish  as  many 
peaches  as  he,  and  his  wife,  and  ten  children  can  dispose  of. 
And  then  he  has  grapes,  apricots,  etc. ;  and  last  year  his 
wife  sold  fifty  dollars'  worth  from  her  strawberry  patch,  and 
had  an  abundance  for  the  table  besides.  Out  of  the  milk  of 
only  one  cow  they  had  butter  enough  to  sell  three  or  four 
pounds  a  week,  besides  abundance  of  milk  and  cream ;  and 
madam  has  the  butter  for  her  pocket  money.  This  is  the 
way  country  people  manage." 

"  Glorious !  "  thought  I.  And  my  wife  and  I  could 
scarcely  sleep,  all  night,  for  the  brilliancy  of  our  anticipa 
tions  ! 

To  be  sure  our  delight  was  somewhat  damped  the  next 
day  by  the  coldness  with  which  my  good  old  uncle,  Jere 
miah  Standfast,  who  happened  along  at  precisely  this  crisis, 
listened  to  our  visions. 

"  You  '11  find  it  pleasant,  children,  in  the  summer  time," 
said  the  hard  -  fisted  old  man,  twirling  his  blue  -  checked 
pocket-handkerchief  ;  "  but  I  'm  sorry  you  've  gone  in  debt 
for  the  land." 

"  Oh,  but  we  shall  soon  save  that  —  it 's  so  much  cheaper 
living  in  the  country  !  "  said  both  of  us  together. 

"  Well,  as  to  that,  I  don't  think  it  is,  to  city-bred  folks." 

Here  I  broke  in  with  a  flood  of  accounts  of  Mr.  B.'s 
peach-trees,  and  Mrs.  B.'s  strawberries,  butter,  apricots,  etc., 
etc.  ;  to  which  the  old  gentleman  listened  with  such  a  long, 
leathery,  unmoved  quietude  of  visage  as  quite  provoked  me, 
and  gave  me  the  worst  possible  opinion  of  his  judgment.  J 


A  SCHOLAR'S  ADVENTURES  IN  THE  COUNTRY    475 

was  disappointed,  too ;  for  as  he  was  reckoned  one  of  the 
best  practical  farmers  in  the  county,  I  had  counted  on  an 
enthusiastic  sympathy  with  all  my  agricultural  designs. 

"  I  tell  you  what,  children,"  he  said,  "  a  body  can  live  in 
the  country,  as  you  say,  amazin'  cheap ;  but  then  a  body 
must  knoiv  how"  —  and  my  uncle  spread  his  pocket-hand 
kerchief  thoughtfully  out  upon  his  knees,  and  shook  his 
head  gravely. 

I  thought  him  a  terribly  slow,  stupid  old  body,  and  won 
dered  how  I  had  always  entertained  so  high  an  opinion  of 
his  sense. 

"  He  is  evidently  getting  old,"  said  I  to  my  wife  ;  "  his 
judgment  is  not  what  it  used  to  be." 

At  all  events,  our  place  was  bought,  and  we  moved  out, 
well  pleased,  the  first  morning  in  April,  not  at  all  remember 
ing  the  ill  savor  of  that  day  for  matters  of  wisdom.  Our 
place  was  a  pretty  cottage,  about  two  miles  from  the  city, 
with  grounds  that  had  been  tastefully  laid  out.  There  was 
no  lack  of  winding  paths,  arbors,  flower  borders,  and  rose 
bushes,  with  which  my  wife  was  especially  pleased.  There 
was  a  little  green  lot,  strolling  off  down  to  a  brook,  with  a 
thick  grove  of  trees  at  the  end,  where  our  cow  was  to  be 
pastured. 

The  first  week  or  two  went  on  happily  enough  in  getting 
our  little  new  pet  of  a  house  into  trimness  and  good  order ; 
for  as  it  had  been  long  for  sale,  of  course*  there  was  any 
amount  of  little  repairs  that  had  been  left  to  amuse  the  leisure 
hours  of  the  purchaser.  Here  a  doorstep  had  given  way, 
and  needed  replacing ;  there  a  shutter  hung  loose,  and  wanted 
a  hinge ;  abundance  of  glass  needed  setting  ;  and  as  to  paint 
ing  and  papering,  there  was  no  end  to  that.  Then  my  wife 
wanted  a  door  cut  here,  to  make  our  bedroom  more  con 
venient,  and  a  china  closet  knocked  up  there,  where  no  china 
closet  before  had  been.  We  even  ventured  on  throwing  out 
a  bay-window  from  our  sitting-room,  because  we  had  luckily 


476    A  SCHOLAR'S  ADVENTURES  IN  THE  COUNTRY 

lighted  on  a  workman  who  was  so  cheap  that  it  was  an  actual 
saving  of  money  to  employ  him.  And  to  be  sure  our  dar 
ling  little  cottage  did  lift  up  its  head  wonderfully  for  all  this 
garnishing  and  furbishing.  I  got  up  early  every  morning, 
and  nailed  up  the  rosebushes,  and  my  wife  got  up  and  watered 
geraniums,  and  both  nattered  ourselves  and  each  other  on  our 
early  hours  and  thrifty  habits.  But  soon,  like  Adam  and  Eve 
in  Paradise,  we  found  our  little  domain  to  ask  more  hands 
than  ours  to  get  it  into  shape.  So  says  I  to  my  wife,  "I  will 
bring  out  a  gardener  when  I  come  next  time,  and  he  shall 
lay  the  garden  out,  and  get  it  into  order ;  and  after  that  I 
can  easily  keep  it  by  the  work  of  my  leisure  hours." 

Our  gardener  was  a  very  sublime  sort  of  man,  —  an  Eng 
lishman,  and  of  course  used  to  laying  out  noblemen's  places, 
• —  and  we  became  as  grasshoppers  in  our  own  eyes  when  he 
talked  of  Lord  This  and  That's  estate,  and  began  to  ques 
tion  us  about  our  carriage  drive  and  conservatory ;  and  we  could 
with  difficulty  bring  the  gentleman  down  to  any  understand 
ing  of  the  humble  limits  of  our  expectations ;  merely  to  dress 
out  the  walks,  and  lay  out  a  kitchen  garden,  and  plant  pota 
toes,  turnips,  beets  and  carrots,  was  quite  a  descent  for  him. 
In  fact,  so  strong  were  his  aesthetic  preferences,  that  he  per 
suaded  my  wife  to  let  him  dig  all  the  turf  off  from  a  green 
square  opposite  the  bay  window,  and  to  lay  it  out  into  divers 
little  triangles,  resembling  small  pieces  of  pie,  together  with  cir 
cles,  mounds,  and  various  other  geometrical  ornaments,  the 
planning  and  planting  of  which  soon  engrossed  my  wife's 
whole  soul.  The  planting  of  the  potatoes,  beets,  carrots,  etc., 
was  intrusted  to  a  raw  Irishman ;  for  as  to  me,  to  confess  the 
truth,  I  began  to  fear  that  digging  did  not  agree  with  me.  It 
is  true  that  I  was  exceedingly  vigorous  at  first,  and  actually 
planted  with  my  own  hands  two  or  three  long  rows  of  pota 
toes  ;  after  which  I  got  a  turn  of  rheumatism  in  my  shoulder, 
which  lasted  me  a  week.  Stooping  down  to  plant  beets  and 
radishes  gave  me  a  vertigo,  so  that  I  was  obliged  to  content 


A  SCHOLAR'S  ADVENTURES  IN  THE  COUNTRY     477 

myself  with  a  general  superintendence  of  the  garden  ;  that  is 
to  say,  I  charged  my  Englishman  to  see  that  my  Irishman  did 
his  duty  properly,  and  then  got  on  to  my  horse  and  rode  to 
the  city.  But  about  one  part  of  the  matter,  I  must  say,  I 
was  not  remiss  ;  and  that  is,  in  the  purchase  of  seed  and  gar 
den  utensils.  Not  a  day  passed  that  I  did  not  come  home 
with  my  pockets  stuffed  with  choice  seeds,  roots,  etc.  ;  and 
the  variety  of  my  garden  utensils  was  unequaled.  There 
was  not  a  pruning  hook  of  any  pattern,  not  a  hoe,  rake,  or 
spade  great  or  small,  that  I  did  not  have  specimens  of;  and 
flower  seeds  and  bulbs  were  also  forthcoming  in  liberal  pro 
portions.  In  fact,  I  had  opened  an  account  at  a  thriving 
seed  store  ;  for  when  a  man  is  driving  business  on  a  large 
scale,  it  is  not  always  convenient  to  hand  out  the  change  for 
every  little  matter,  and  buying  things  on  account  is  as  neat 
and  agreeable  a  mode  of  acquisition  as  paying  bills  with  one's 
notes. 

"  You  know  we  must  have  a  cow,"  said  my  wife,  the  morn 
ing  of  our  second  week.  Our  friend  the  gardener,  who  had 
now  worked  with  us  at  the  rate  of  two  dollars  a  day  for 
two  weeks,  was  at  hand  in  a  moment  in  our  emergency. 
We  wanted  to  buy  a  cow,  and  he  had  one  to  sell  —  a  won 
derful  cow,  of  a  real  English  breed.  He  would  not  sell 
her  for  any  money,  except  to  oblige  particular  friends  ;  but 
as  we  had  patronized  him,  we  should  have  her  for  forty 
dollars.  How  much  we  were  obliged  to  him  !  The  forty 
dollars  were  speedily  forthcoming,  and  so  also  was  the  cow. 

"  What  makes  her  shake  her  head  in  that  way  ?  "  said  my 
wife,  apprehensively,  as  she  observed  the  interesting  beast 
making  sundry  demonstrations  with  her  horns.  "  I  hope 
she 's  gentle." 

The  gardener  fluently  demonstrated  that  the  animal  was  a 
pattern  of  all  the  softer  graces,  and  that  this  head-shaking 
was  merely  a  little  nervous  affection  consequent  on  the  em 
barrassment  of  a  new  position.  We  had  faith  to  believe 


478    A  SCHOLAR'S  ADVENTURES  IN  THE  COUNTRY 

almost  anything  at  this  time,  and  therefore  came  from  the 
barn  yard  to  the  house  as  much  satisfied  with  our  purchase 
as  Job  with  his  three  thousand  camels  and  five  hundred 
yoke  of  oxen.  Her  quondam  master  milked  her  for  us  the 
first  evening,  out  of  a  delicate  regard  to  her  feelings  as  a 
stranger,  and  we  fancied  that  we  discerned  forty  dollars' 
worth  of  excellence  in  the  very  quality  of  the  milk. 

But  alas  !  the  next  morning  our  Irish  girl  came  in  with  a 
most  rueful  face.  "  And  is  it  milking  that  baste  you  'd  have 
me  be  after  ?  "  she  said  ;  "  sure,  and  she  won't  let  me  come 
near  her." 

"  Nonsense,  Biddy!"  said  I;  "  you  frightened  her,  per 
haps  ;  the  cow  is  perfectly  gentle ;  "  and  with  the  pail 
on  my  arm  I  sallied  forth.  The  moment  madam  saw  me 
entering  the  cow  yard,  she  greeted  me  with  a  very  expres 
sive  flourish  of  her  horns. 

"  This  won't  do,"  said  I,  and  I  stopped.  The  lady  evi 
dently  was  serious  in  her  intentions  of  resisting  any  personal 
approaches.  I  cut  a  cudgel,  and,  putting  on  a  bold  face, 
marched  towards  her,  while  Biddy  followed  with  her  milk 
ing  stool.  Apparently  the  beast  saw  the  necessity  of  tem 
porizing,  for  she  assumed  a  demure  expression,  and  Biddy 
sat  down  to  milk.  I  stood  sentry,  and  if  the  lady  shook 
her  head  I  shook  my  stick  ;  and  thus  the  milking  opera 
tion  proceeded  with  tolerable  serenity  and  success. 

"  There  !  "  said  I,  with  dignity,  when  the  frothing  pail 
was  full  to  the  brim.  "  That  will  do,  Biddy,"  and  I 
dropped  my  stick.  Dump  !  came  madam's  heel  on  the  side 
of  the  pail,  and  it  flew  like  a  rocket  into  the  air,  while  the 
milky  flood  showered  plentifully  over  me,  and  a  new  broad 
cloth  riding-coat  that  I  had  assumed  for  the  first  time  that 
morning.  "  Whew  !  "  said  I,  as  soon  as  I  could  get  my 
breath  from  this  extraordinary  shower  bath  ;  "  what 's  all 
this  ?  "  My  wife  came  running  towards  the  cow  yard,  as  I 
stood  with  the  milk  streaming  from  my  hair,  filling  my 


A  SCHOLAR'S  ADVENTURES  IN  THE  COUNTRY    479 

eyes,  and  dropping  from  the  tip  of  my  nose ;  and  she  and 
Biddy  performed  a  recitative  lamentation  over  me  in  alter 
nate  strophes,  like  the  chorus  in  a  Greek  tragedy.  Such 
was  our  first  morning's  experience ;  but  as  we  had  an 
nounced  our  bargain  with  some  considerable  flourish  of 
trumpets  among  our  neighbors  and  friends,  we  concluded 
to  hush  the  matter  up  as  much  as  possible. 

"  These  very  superior  cows  are  apt  to  be  cross,"  said  I ; 
"  we  must  bear  with  it  as  we  do  with  the  eccentricities  of 
genius ;  besides,  when  she  gets  accustomed  to  us,  it  will  be 
better." 

Madam  was  therefore  installed  into  her  pretty  pasture  lot, 
and  my  wife  contemplated  with  pleasure  the  picturesque 
effect  of  her  appearance,  reclining  on  the  green  slope  of  the 
pasture  lot,  or  standing  ankle  deep  in  the  gurgling  brook, 
or  reclining  under  the  deep  shadows  of  the  trees.  She  was, 
in  fact,  a  handsome  cow,  which  may  account,  in  part,  for 
some  of  her  sins  ;  and  this  consideration  inspired  me  with 
some  degree  of  indulgence  towards  her  foibles. 

But  when  I  found  that  Biddy  could  never  succeed  in 
getting  near  her  in  the  pasture,  and  that  any  kind  of  suc 
cess  in  the  milking  operations  required  my  vigorous  personal 
exertions  morning  and  evening,  the  matter  wore  a  more 
serious  aspect,  and  I  began  to  feel  quite  pensive  and  appre 
hensive.  It  is  very  well  to  talk  of  the  pleasures  of  the 
milkmaid  going  out  in  the  balmy  freshness  of  the  purple 
dawn ;  but  imagine  a  poor  fellow  pulled  out  of  bed  on  a 
drizzly,  rainy  morning,  and  equipping  himself  for  a  scamper 
through  a  wet  pasture  lot,  rope  in  hand,  at  the  heels  of 
such  a  termagant  as  mine !  In  fact,  madam  established  a 
regular  series  of  exercises,  which  had  all  to  be  gone  through 
before  she  would  suffer  herself  to  be  captured  ;  as,  first,  she 
would  station  herself  plump  in  the  middle  of  a  marsh,  which 
lay  at  the  lower  part  of  the  lot,  and  look  very  innocent  and 
absent-minded,  as  if  reflecting  on  some  sentimental  subject. 


480    A  SCHOLAR'S  ADVENTURES  IN  THE  COUNTRY 

"  Suke  !  Suke  !  Suke  !  "  I  ejaculate,  cautiously  tottering 
along  the  edge  of  the  marsh,  and  holding  out  an  ear  of  corn. 
The  lady  looks  gracious,  and  comes  forward,  almost  within 
reach  of  my  hand.  I  make  a  plunge  to  throw  the  rope 
over  her  horns,  and  away  she  goes,  kicking  up  mud  and 
water  into  my  face  in  her  flight,  while  I,  losing  my  balance, 
tumble  forward  into  the  marsh.  I  pick  myself  up,  and, 
full  of  wrath,  behold  her  placidly  chewing  her  cud  on  the 
other  side,  with  the  meekest  air  imaginable,  as  who  should 
say,  "I  hope  you  are  not  hurt,  sir."  I  dash  through  swamp 
and  bog  furiously,  resolving  to  carry  all  by  a  coup  de  main. 
Then  follows  a  miscellaneous  season  of  dodging,  scampering, 
and  bopeeping,  among  the  trees  of  the  grove,  interspersed 
with  sundry  occasional  races  across  the  bog  aforesaid.  I 
always  wondered  how  I  caught  her  every  day  ;  and  when 
I  had  tied  her  head  to  one  post  and  her  heels  to  another,  I 
wiped  the  sweat  from  my  brow,  and  thought  I  was  paying 
dear  for  the  eccentricities  of  genius.  A  genius  she  certainly 
was,  for  besides  her  surprising  agility,  she  had  other  talents 
equally  extraordinary.  There  was  no  fence  that  she  could 
not  take  down ;  nowhere  that  she  could  not  go.  She  took 
the  pickets  off  the  garden  fence  at  her  pleasure,  using  her 
horns  as  handily  as  I  could  use  a  claw  hammer.  Whatever 
she  had  a  mind  to,  whether  it  were  a  bite  in  the  cabbage 
garden,  or  a  run  in  the  corn  patch,  or  a  foraging  expedition 
into  the  flower  borders,  she  made  herself  equally  welcome 
and  at  home.  Such  a  scampering  and  driving,  such  cries 
of  "  Suke  here  "  and  "  Suke  there,"  as  constantly  greeted 
our  ears,  kept  our  little  establishment  in  a  constant  commo 
tion.  At  last,  when  she  one  morning  made  a  plunge  at  the 
skirts  of  my  new  broadcloth  frock  coat,  and  carried  off  one 
flap  on  her  horns,  my  patience  gave  out,  and  I  determined 
to  sell  her. 

As,  however,  I  had  made  a  good  story  of  my  misfortunes 
among  my  friends  and  neighbors,  and  amused  them  with 


A  SCHOLAR'S  ADVENTURES  IN  THE  COUNTRY    481 

sundry  whimsical  accounts  of  my  various  adventures  in  the 
cow-catching  line,  I  found,  when  I  came  to  speak  of  selling, 
that  there  was  a  general  coolness  on  the  subject,  and  nobody 
seemed  disposed  to  be  the  recipient  of  my  responsibilities. 
In  short,  I  was  glad,  at  last,  to  get  fifteen  dollars  for  her, 
and  comforted  myself  with  thinking  that  I  had  at  least 
gained  twenty-five  dollars  worth  of  experience  in  the  trans 
action,  to  say  nothing  of  the  fine  exercise. 

I  comforted  my  soul,  however,  the  day  after,  by  purchas 
ing  and  bringing  home  to  my  wife  a  fine  swarm  of  bees. 

"  Your  bee,  now,"  says  I,  "  is  a  really  classical  insect, 
and  breathes  of  Virgil  and  the  Augustan  age, — and  then 
she  is  a  domestic,  tranquil,  placid  creature.  How  beautiful 
the  murmuring  of  a  hive  near  our  honeysuckle  of  a  calm, 
summer  evening  !  Then  they  are  tranquilly  and  peacefully 
amassing  for  us  their  stores  of  sweetness,  while  they  lull  us 
with  their  murmurs.  What  a  beautiful  image  of  disinter 
ested  benevolence !  " 

My  wife  declared  that  I  was  quite  a  poet,  and  the  bee 
hive  was  duly  installed  near  the  flower  plots,  that  the  deli 
cate  creatures  might  have  the  full  benefit  of  the  honeysuckle 
and  mignonette.  My  spirits  began  to  rise.  I  bought  three 
different  treatises  on  the  rearing  of  bees,  and  also  one  or 
two  new  patterns  of  hives,  and  proposed  to  rear  my  bees  on 
the  most  approved  model.  I  charged  all  the  establishment 
to  let  me  know  when  there  was  any  indication  of  an  emi 
grating  spirit,  that  I  might  be  ready  to  receive  the  new 
swarm  into  my  patent  mansion. 

Accordingly,  one  afternoon,  when  I  was  deep  in  an  article 
that  I  was  preparing  for  the  "  North  American  Review,"  in 
telligence  was  brought  me  that  a  swarm  had  risen.  I  was 
on  the  alert  at  once,  and  discovered,  on  going  out,  that  the 
provoking  creatures  had  chosen  the  top  of  a  tree  about  thirty 
feet  high  to  settle  on.  Now  my  books  had  carefully  in 
structed  me  just  how  to  approach  the  swarm  and  cover  them 


482    A  SCHOLAR'S  ADVENTURES  IN  THE  COUNTRY 

with  a  new  hive ;  but  I  had  never  contemplated  the  possi 
bility  of  the  swarm  being,  like  Hainan's  gallows,  forty 
cubits  high.  I  looked  despairingly  upon  the  smooth-bark 
tree,  which  rose,  like  a  column,  full  twenty  feet,  without 
branch  or  twig.  "  What  is  to  be  done  ?  "  said  I,  appealing 
to  two  or  three  neighbors.  At  last,  at  the  recommendation 
of  one  of  them,  a  ladder  was  raised  against  the  tree,  and, 
equipped  with  a  shirt  outside  of  my  clothes,  a  green  veil 
over  my  head,  and  a  pair  of  leather  gloves  on  my  hands,  I 
went  up  with  a  saw  at  my  girdle  to  saw  off  the  branch  on 
which  they  had  settled,  and  lower  it  by  a  rope  to  a  neigh 
bor,  similarly  equipped,  who  stood  below  with  the  hive. 

As  a  result  of  this  manoeuvre  the  fastidious  little  insects 
were  at  length  fairly  installed  at  housekeeping  in  my  new 
patent  hive,  and,  rejoicing  in  my  success,  I  again  sat  down 
to  my  article. 

That  evening  my  wife  and  I  took  tea  in  our  honeysuckle 
arbor,  with  our  little  ones  and  a  friend  or  two,  to  whom  I 
showed  my  treasures,  and  expatiated  at  large  on  the  comforts 
and  conveniences  of  the  new  patent  hive. 

But  alas  for  the  hopes  of  man !  The  little  ungrateful 
wretches  —  what  must  they  do  but  take  advantage  of  my 
oversleeping  myself,  the  next  morning,  to  clear  out  for  new 
quarters  without  so  much  as  leaving  me  a  P.  P.  C.  !  Such 
was  the  fact ;  at  eight  o'clock  I  found  the  new  patent  hive 
as  good  as  ever ;  but  the  bees  I  have  never  seen  from  that 
day  to  this  ! 

"  The  rascally  little  conservatives  !  "  said  I ;  "  I  believe 
they  have  never  had  a  new  idea  from  the  days  of  Virgil 
down,  and  are  entirely  unprepared  to  appreciate  improve 
ments." 

Meanwhile  the  seeds  began  to  germinate  in  our  garden, 
when  we  found,  to  our  chagrin,  that,  between  John  Bull 
and  Paddy,  there  had  occurred  sundry  confusions  in  the 
several  departments.  Radishes  had  been  planted  broadcast^ 


A  SCHOLAR'S  ADVENTURES  IN  THE  COUNTRY    483 

carrots  and  beets  arranged  in  hills,  and  here  and  there  a 
whole  paper  of  seed  appeared  to  have  been  planted  bodily. 
My  good  old  uncle,  who,  somewhat  to  my  confusion,  made 
me  a  call  at  this  time,  was  greatly  distressed  and  scandalized 
by  the  appearance  of  our  garden.  But  by  a  deal  of  fussing, 
transplanting,  and  replanting,  it  was  got  into  some  shape 
and  order.  My  uncle  was  rather  troublesome,  as  careful 
old  people  are  apt  to  be  —  annoying  us  by  perpetual  inquir 
ies  of  what  we  gave  for  this  and  that,  and  running  up  pro 
voking  calculations  on  the  final  cost  of  matters ;  and  we 
began  to  wish  that  his  visits  might  be  as  short  as  would  be 
convenient. 

But  when,  on  taking  leave,  he  promised  to  send  us  a  fine 
young  cow  of  his  own  raising,  our  hearts  rather  smote  us 
for  our  impatience. 

"  'Tain't  any  of  your  new  breeds,  nephew,7'  said  the  old 
man,  "  yet  I  can  say  that  she  's  a  gentle,  likely  young  crit- 
tur,  and  better  worth  forty  dollars  than  many  a  one  that 's 
cried  up  for  Ayrshire  or  Durham ;  and  you  shall  be  quite 
welcome  to  her." 

We  thanked  him,  as  in  duty  bound,  and  thought  that  if 
he  was  full  of  old-fashioned  notions,  he  was  no  less  full  of 
kindness  and  good  will. 

And  now,  with  a  new  cow,  with  our  garden  beginning  to 
thrive  under  the  gentle  showers  of  May,  with  our  flower 
borders  blooming,  my  wife  and  I  began  to  think  ourselves 
in  Paradise.  But  alas !  the  same  sun  and  rain  that  warmed 
our  fruit  and  flowers  brought  up  from  the  earth,  like  sulky 
gnomes,  a  vast  array  of  purple-leaved  weeds,  that  almost  in 
a  night  seemed  to  cover  the  whole  surface  of  the  garden 
beds.  Our  gardeners  both  being  gone,  the  weeding  was 
expected  to  be  done  by  me  —  one  of  the  anticipated  relaxa 
tions  of  my  leisure  hours. 

"  Well,"  said  I,  in  reply  to  a  gentle  intimation  from  my 
wife,  "  when  my  article  is  finished,  I  '11  take  a  day  and 
weed  all  up  clean." 


484    A  SCHOLAR'S  ADVENTURES  IN  THE  COUNTRY 

Thus  days  slipped  by,  till  at  length  the  article  wae 
dispatched,  and  I  proceeded  to  my  garden.  Amazement ! 
Who  could  have  possibly  foreseen  that  anything  earthly 
could  grow  so  fast  in  a  few  days  !  There  were  no  bounds, 
no  alleys,  no  beds,  no  distinction  of  beet  and  carrot,  nothing 
but  a  flourishing  congregation  of  weeds  nodding  and  bobbing 
in  the  morning  breeze,  as  if  to  say,  "  We  hope  you  are  well, 
sir  —  we  've  got  the  ground,  you  see  !  "  I  began  to  explore, 
and  to  hoe,  and  to  weed.  Ah  !  did  anybody  ever  try  to 
clean  a  neglected  carrot  or  beet  bed,  or  bend  his  back  in  a 
hot  sun  over  rows  of  weedy  onions !  He  is  the  man  to  feel 
for  my  despair !  How  I  weeded,  and  sweat,  and  sighed  ! 
till,  when  high  noon  came  on,  as  the  result  of  all  my  toils, 
only  three  beds  were  cleaned  !  And  how  disconsolate  looked 
the  good  seed,  thus  unexpectedly  delivered  from  its  shelter 
ing  tares,  and  laid  open  to  a  broiling  July  sun!  Every 
juvenile  beet  and  carrot  lay  flat  down  wilted,  and  drooping, 
as  if,  like  me,  they  had  been  weeding,  instead  of  being 
weeded. 

"  This  weeding  is  quite  a  serious  matter,"  said  I  to  my 
wife  ;  "  the  fact  is,  I  must  have  help  about  it !  " 

"  Just  what  I  was  myself  thinking,"  said  my  wife.  "  My 
flower  borders  are  all  in  confusion,  and  my  petunia  mounds 
so  completely  overgrown,  that  nobody  would  dream  what 
they  were  meant  for  !  " 

In  short,  it  was  agreed  between  us  that  we  could  not 
afford  the  expense  of  a  full-grown  man  to  keep  our  place  ; 
yet  we  must  reinforce  ourselves  by  the  addition  of  a  boy, 
and  a  brisk  youngster  from  the  vicinity  was  pitched  upon 
as  the  happy  addition.  This  youth  was  a  fellow  of  decid 
edly  quick  parts,  and  in  one  forenoon  made  such  a  clearing 
in  our  garden  that  I  was  delighted.  Bed  after  bed  appeared 
to  view,  all  cleared  and  dressed  out  with  such  celerity  that 
I  was  quite  ashamed  of  my  own  slowness,  until,  on  examina 
tion,  I  discovered  that  he  had,  M'ith  great  impartiality, 
pulled  up  both  weeds  and  vegetables. 


A  SCHOLAR'S  ADVENTURES  IN  THE  COUNTRY    485 

This  hopeful  beginning  was  followed  up  by  a  succession 
of  proceedings  which  should  be  recorded  for  the  instruction 
of  all  who  seek  for  help  from  the  race  of  boys.  Such  a 
loser  of  all  tools,  great  and  small ;  such  an  invariable  leaver- 
open  of  all  gates,  and  letter-down  of  bars ;  such  a  person 
ification  of  all  manner  of  anarchy  and  ill  luck,  had  never 
before  been  seen  on  the  estate.  His  time,  while  I  was  gone 
to  the  city,  was  agreeably  diversified  with  roosting  on  the 
fence,  swinging  on  the  gates,  making  poplar  whistles  for 
the  children,  hunting  eggs,  and  eating  whatever  fruit  hap 
pened  to  be  in  season,  in  which  latter  accomplishment 
he  was  certainly  quite  distinguished.  After  about  three 
weeks  of  this  kind  of  joint  gardening,  we  concluded  to  dis 
miss  Master  Tom  from  the  firm,  and  employ  a  man. 

"  Things  must  be  taken  care  of,"  said  I,  "  and  I  cannot 
do  it.  ?T  is  out  of  the  question."  And  so  the  man  was 
secured. 

But  I  am  making  a  long  story,  and  may  chance  to  outrun 
the  sympathies  of  my  readers.  Time  would  fail  me  to  tell 
of  the  distresses  manifold  that  fell  upon  me  —  of  cows  dried 
up  by  poor  milkers  ;  of  hens  that  would  n't  set  at  all,  and 
hens  that,  despite  all  law  and  reason,  would  set  on  one  egg ; 
of  hens  that,  having  hatched  families,  straightway  led  them 
into  all  manner  of  high  grass  and  weeds,  by  which  means 
numerous  young  chicks  caught  premature  colds  and  perished ; 
and  how,  when  I,  with  manifold  toil,  had  driven  one  of  these 
inconsiderate  gadders  into  a  coop,  to  teach  her  domestic  hab 
its,  the  rats  came  down  upon  her  and  slew  every  chick  in 
one  night ;  how  my  pigs  were  always  practicing  gymnastic 
exercises  over  the  fence  of  the  sty,  and  marauding  in  the 
garden.  I  wonder  that  Fourier  never  conceived  the  idea 
of  having  his  garden  land  ploughed  by  pigs  ;  for  certainly 
they  manifest  quite  a  decided  elective  attraction  for  turning 
up  the  earth. 

When  autumn  came,  I  went  soberly  to  market,  in  the 


486    A  SCHOLAR'S  ADVENTURES  IN  THE  COUNTRY 

neighboring  city,  and  bought  my  potatoes  and  turnips  like 
any  other  man  ;  for,  between  all  the  various  systems  of 
gardening  pursued,  I  was  obliged  to  confess  that  my  first 
horticultural  effort  was  a  decided  failure.  But  though  all 
my  rural  visions  had  proved  illusive,  there  were  some  very 
substantial  realities.  My  bill  at  the  seed  store,  for  seeds, 
roots,  and  tools,  for  example,  had  run  up  to  an  amount 
that  was  perfectly  unaccountable  ;  then  there  were  various 
smaller  items,  such  as  horseshoeing,  carriage  mending  —  for 
he  who  lives  in  the  country  and  does  business  in  the  city 
must  keep  his  vehicle  and  appurtenances.  I  had  always 
prided  myself  on  being  an  exact  man,  and  settling  every 
account,  great  and  small,  with  the  going  out  of  the  old  year ; 
but  this  season  I  found  myself  sorely  put  to  it.  In  fact, 
had  not  I  received  a  timely  lift  from  my  good  old  uncle, 
I  should  have  made  a  complete  break  down.  The  old  gen 
tleman's  troublesome  habit  of  ciphering  and  calculating,  it 
seems,  had  led  him  beforehand  to  foresee  that  I  was  not  ex 
actly  in  the  money-making  line,  nor  likely  to  possess  much 
surplus  revenue  to  meet  the  note  which  I  had  given  for 
my  place  ;  and,  therefore,  he  quietly  paid  it  himself,  as  I 
discovered,  when,  after  much  anxiety  and  some  sleepless 
nights,  I  went  to  the  holder  to  ask  for  an  extension  of 
credit. 

"  He  was  right,  after  all,"  said  I  to  my  wife  ;   " '  to  live 
cheap  in  the  country,  a  body  must  know  how.' ': 


TKIALS   OF   A   HOUSEKEEPER 

I  HAVE  a  detail  of  very  homely  grievances  to  present ; 
but  such  as  they  are,  many  a  heart  will  feel  them  to  be 
heavy  —  the  trials  of  a  housekeeper. 

"  Poh !  "  says  one  of  the  lords  of  creation,  taking  his 
cigar  out  of  his  mouth,  and  twirling  it  between  his  two  first 
fingers,  "  what  a  fuss  these  women  do  make  of  this  simple 
matter  of  managing  a  family  !  I  can't  see  for  my  life  as 
there  is  anything  so  extraordinary  to  be  done  in  this  matter 
of  housekeeping  :  only  three  meals  a  day  to  be  got  and  cleared 
off  —  and  it  really  seems  to  take  up  the  whole  of  their  mind 
from  morning  till  night.  I  could  keep  house  without  so 
much  of  a  flurry,  I  know." 

Now,  prithee,  good  brother,  listen  to  my  story,  and  see 
how  much  you  know  about  it.  I  came  to  this  enlightened 
West  about  a  year  since,  and  was  duly  established  in  a  com 
fortable  country  residence  within  a  mile  and  a  half  of  the 
city,  and  there  commenced  the  enjoyment  of  domestic  fe 
licity.  I  had  been  married  about  three  months,  and  had 
been  previously  in  love  in  the  most  approved  romantic  way, 
with  all  the  proprieties  of  moonlight  walks,  serenades,  sen 
timental  billets  doux,  and  everlasting  attachment. 

After  having  been  allowed,  as  I  said,  about  three  months 
to  get  over  this  sort  of  thing,  and  to  prepare  for  realities,  I 
was  located  for  life  as  aforesaid.  My  family  consisted  of 
myself  and  husband,  a  female  friend  as  a  visitor,  and  two 
brothers  of  my  good  man,  who  were  engaged  with  him  in 
business. 

I  pass  over  the  first  two  or  three  days,  spent  in  that  pro- 


488  TRIALS   OF  A   HOUSEKEEPER 

cess  of  hammering  boxes,  breaking  crockery,  knocking  things 
down  and  picking  them  up  again,  which  is  commonly  called 
getting  to  housekeeping.  As  usual,  carpets  were  sewed  and 
stretched,  laid  down,  and  taken  up  to  be  sewed  over  ;  things 
were  formed,  and  reformed,  transformed,  and  co?zformed, 
till  at  last  a  settled  order  began  to  appear.  But  now  came 
up  the  great  point  of  all.  During  our  confusion  we  had 
cooked  and  eaten  our  meals  in  a  very  miscellaneous  and  pas 
toral  manner,  eating  now  from  the  top  of  a  barrel,  and  now 
from  a  fireboard  laid  on  two  chairs,  and  drinking,  some  from 
teacups,  and  some  from  saucers,  and  some  from  tumblers, 
and  some  from  a  pitcher  big  enough  to  be  drowned  in,  and 
sleeping,  some  on  sofas,  and  some  on  straggling  beds  and 
mattresses  thrown  down  here  and  there  wherever  there  was 
room.  All  these  pleasant  barbarities  were  now  at  an  end. 
The  house  was  in  order,  the  dishes  put  up  in  their  places ; 
three  regular  meals  were  to  be  administered  in  one  day,  all 
in  an  orderly,  civilized  form  ;  beds  were  to  be  made,  rooms 
swept  and  dusted,  dishes  washed,  knives  scoured,  and  all  the 
et  cetera  to  be  attended  to.  Now  for  getting  "  help,"  as 
Mrs.  Trollope  says ;  and  where  and  how  were  we  to  get  it  ? 
We  knew  very  few  persons  in  the  city ;  and  how  were  we 
to  accomplish  the  matter  ?  At  length  the  "  house  of  em 
ployment  "  was  mentioned  ;  and  my  husband  was  dispatched 
thither  regularly  every  day  for  a  week,  while  I,  in  the  mean 
time,  was  very  nearly  dispatched  by  the  abundance  of  work 
at  home.  At  length,  one  evening,  as  I  was  sitting  com 
pletely  exhausted,  thinking  of  resorting  to  the  last  feminine 
expedient  for  supporting  life,  viz.,  a  good  fit  of  crying,  my 
husband  made  his  appearance,  with  a  most  triumphant  air, 
at  the  door.  "  There,  Margaret,  I  have  got  you  a  couple  at 
last  —  cook  and  chambermaid."  So  saying,  he  flourished 
open  the  door,  and  gave  to  my  view  the  picture  of  a  little, 
dry,  snuffy-looking  old  woman,  and  a  great,  staring  Dutch 
girl,  in  a  green  bonnet  with  red  ribbons,  with  mouth  wide 


TRIALS   OF   A   HOUSEKEEPER  489 

open,  and  hands  and  feet  that  would  have  made  a  Greek 
sculptor  open  his  mouth  too.  I  addressed  forthwith  a  few 
words  of  encouragement  to  each  of  this  cultivated-looking 
couple,  and  proceeded  to  ask  their  names  ;  and  forthwith 
the  old  woman  began  to  snuffle  and  to  wipe  her  face  with 
what  was  left  of  an  old  silk  pocket-handkerchief  preparatory 
to  speaking,  while  the  young  lady  opened  her  mouth  wider, 
and  looked  around  with  a  frightened  air,  as  if  meditating 
an  escape.  After  some  preliminaries,  however,  I  found  out 
that  my  old  woman  was  Mrs.  Tibbins,  and  my  Hebe's  name 
was  Kotterin  ;  also,  that  she  knew  much  more  Dutch  than 
English,  and  not  any  too  much  of  either.  The  old  lady  was 
the  cook.  I  ventured  a  few  inquiries.  "Had  she  ever 
cooked  ? " 

"  Yes,  ma'am,  sartain  5  she  had  lived  at  two  or  three  places 
in  the  city." 

"  I  suspect,  my  dear,"  said  my  husband  confidently,  "  that 
she  is  an  experienced  cook,  and  so  your  troubles  are  over  ;  " 
and  he  went  to  reading  his  newspaper.  I  said  no  more,  but 
determined  to  wait  till  morning.  The  breakfast,  to  be  sure, 
did  not  do  much  honor  to  the  talents  of  my  official ;  but  it 
was  the  first  time,  and  the  place  was  new  to  her.  After 
breakfast  was  cleared  away  I  proceeded  to  give  directions  for 
dinner  ;  it  was  merely  a  plain  joint  of  meat,  I  said,  to  be 
roasted  in  the  tin  oven.  The  experienced  cook  looked  at 
me  with  a  stare  of  entire  vacuity.  "  The  tin  oven,"  I  re 
peated,  "  stands  there,"  pointing  to  it. 

She  walked  up  to  it,  and  touched  it  with  such  an  appear 
ance  of  suspicion  as  if  it  had  been  an  electrical  battery,  and 
then  looked  round  at  me  with  a  look  of  such  helpless  igno 
rance  that  my  soul  was  moved.  "  I  never  see  one  of  them 
things  before,"  said  she. 

"  Never  saw  a  tin  oven  !  "  I  exclaimed.  "  I  thought 
you  said  you  had  cooked  in  two  or  three  families." 

"  They  does  not  have  such  things  as  them,  though,"  re- 


490  TRIALS   OF   A   HOUSEKEEPER 

joined  rny  old  lady.  Nothing  was  to  be  done,  of  course,  but 
to  instruct  her  into  the  philosophy  of  the  case ;  and  having 
spitted  the  joint,  and  given  numberless  directions,  I  walked 
off  to  my  room  to  superintend  the  operations  of  Kotterin, 
to  whom  I  had  committed  the  making  of  my  bed  and  the 
sweeping  of  my  room,  it  never  having  come  into  my  head 
that  there  could  be  a  wrong  way  of  making  a  bed ;  and  to 
this  day  it  is  a  marvel  to  me  how  any  one  could  arrange 
pillows  and  quilts  to  make  such  a  nondescript  appearance  as 
mine  now  presented.  One  glance  showed  me  that  Kotterin 
also  was  "just  caught"  and  that  I  had  as  much  to  do  in 
her  department  as  in  that  of  my  old  lady. 

Just  then  the  doorbell  rang.  "Oh,  there  is  the  door 
bell,  "  I  exclaimed.  "  Run,  Kotterin,  and  show  them  into 
the  parlor." 

Kotterin  started  to  run,  as  directed,  and  then  stopped, 
and  stood  looking  round  on  all  the  doors  and  on  me  with  a 
wofully  puzzled  air.  "  The  street  door,"  said  I,  pointing 
towards  the  entry.  Kotterin  blundered  into  the  entry,  and 
stood  gazing  with  a  look  of  stupid  wonder  at  the  bell  ring 
ing  without  hands,  while  I  went  to  the  door  and  let  in 
the  company  before  she  could  be  fairly  made  to  understand 
the  connection  between  the  ringing  and  the  phenomenon  of 
admission. 

As  dinner  time  approached,  I  sent  word  into  my  kitchen 
to  have  it  set  on  ;  but  recollecting  the  state  of  the  heads 
of  department  there,  I  soon  followed  my  own  orders.  I 
found  the  tin  oven  standing  out  in  the  middle  of  the  kitchen, 
and  my  cook  seated  a  la  Turc  in  front  of  it,  contem 
plating  the  roast  meat  with  full  as  puzzled  an  air  as  in  the 
morning.  I  once  more  explained  the  mystery  of  taking  it 
off,  and  assisted  her  to  get  it  on  to  the  platter,  though  some 
what  cooled  by  having  been  so  long  set  out  for  inspection. 
I  was  standing  holding  the  spit  in  my  hands,  when  Kot 
terin,  who  had  heard  the  doorbell  ring,  and  was  deter- 


TRIALS   OF   A   HOUSEKEEPER  491 

mined  this  time  to  be  in  season,  ran  into  the  hall,  and,  soon 
returning,  opened  the  kitchen  door,  and  politely  ushered  in 
three  or  four  fashionable  looking  ladies,  exclaiming,  "  Here 
she  is."  As  these  were  strangers  from  the  city,  who  had 
come  to  make  their  first  call,  this  introduction  was  far  from 
proving  an  eligible  one  —  the  look  of  thunderstruck  aston 
ishment  with  which  I  greeted  their  first  appearance,  as  I 
stood  brandishing  the  spit,  and  the  terrified  snuffling  and 
staring  of  poor  Mrs.  Tibbins,  who  again  had  recourse  to  her 
old  pocket-handkerchief,  almost  entirely  vanquished  their 
gravity,  and  it  was  evident  that  they  were  on  the  point  of 
a  broad  laugh  ;  so,  recovering  my  self-possession,  I  apolo 
gized,  and  led  the  way  to  the  parlor. 

Let  these  few  incidents  be  a  specimen  of  the  four  mortal 
weeks  that  I  spent  with  these  "  helps,"  during  which  time 
I  did  almost  as  much  work,  with  twice  as  much  anxiety,  as 
when  there  was  nobody  there  ;  and  yet  everything  went 
wrong  besides.  The  young  gentlemen  complained  of  the 
patches  of  starch  grimed  to  their  collars,  and  the  streaks  of 
black  coal  ironed  into  their  dickies,  while  one  week  every 
pocket-handkerchief  in  the  house  was  starched  so  stiff  that 
you  might  as  well  have  carried  an  earthen  plate  in  your 
pocket ;  the  tumblers  looked  muddy  ;  the  plates  were  never 
washed  clean  or  wiped  dry  unless  I  attended  to  each  one  ; 
and  as  to  eating  and  drinking,  we  experienced  a  variety 
that  we  had  not  before  considered  possible. 

At  length  the  old  woman  vanished  from  the  stage,  and 
was  succeeded  by  a  knowing,  active,  capable  damsel,  with  a 
temper  like  a  steel-trap,  who  remained  with  me  just  one 
week,  and  then  went  off  in  a  fit  of  spite.  To  her  succeeded 
a  rosy,  good-natured,  merry  lass,  who  broke  the  crockery, 
burned  the  dinner,  tore  the  clothes  in  ironing,  and  knocked 
down  everything  that  stood  in  her  way  about  the  house, 
without  at  all  discomposing  herself  about  the  matter.  One 
night  she  took  the  stopper  from  a  barrel  of  molasses,  and 


492  TRIALS   OF   A   HOUSEKEEPER 

came  singing  off  upstairs,  while  the  molasses  ran  soberly 
out  into  the  cellar  bottom  all  night,  till  by  morning  it  was 
in  a  state  of  universal  emancipation.  Having  done  this, 
and  also  dispatched  an  entire  set  of  tea  things  by  letting 
the  waiter  fall,  she  one  day  made  her  disappearance. 

Then,  for  a  wonder,  there  fell  to  my  lot  a  tidy,  efficient, 
trained  English  girl ;  pretty,  and  genteel,  and  neat,  and 
knowing  how  to  do  everything,  and  with  the  sweetest  tem 
per  in  the  world.  "  Now,"  said  I  to  myself,  "  I  shall  rest 
from  my  labors."  Everything  about  the  house  began  to 
go  right,  and  looked  as  clean  and  genteel  as  Mary's  own 
pretty  self.  But,  alas !  this  period  of  repose  was  inter 
rupted  by  the  vision  of  a  clever,  trim-looking  young  man, 
who  for  some  weeks  could  be  heard  scraping  his  boots  at 
the  kitchen  door  every  Sunday  night ;  and  at  last  Miss 
Mary,  with  some  smiling  and  blushing,  gave  me  to  under 
stand  that  she  must  leave  in  two  weeks. 

"  Why,  Mary,"  said  I,  feeling  a  little  mischievous, 
"  don't  you  like  the  place  ?  " 

"  Oh,  yes,  ma'am." 

"  Then  why  do  you  look  for  another  ?  " 

"  I  am  not  going  to  another  place." 

"  What,  Mary,  are  you  going  to  learn  a  trade  ?  " 

"No,  ma'am." 

"  Why,  then,  what  do  you  mean  to  do  ?  " 

"  I  expect  to  keep  house  myself,  ma'am,"  said  she,  laugh 
ing  and  blushing. 

"  Oh  ho  !  "  said  I,  "  that  is  it ;  "  and  so  in  two  weeks 
I  lost  the  best  little  girl  in  the  world :  peace  to  her  mem 
ory. 

After  this  came  an  interregnum,  which  put  me  in  mind 
of  the  chapter  in  Chronicles  that  I  used  to  read  with  great 
delight  when  a  child,  where  Basha,  and  Elah,  and  Tibni, 
and  Zimri,  and  Omri,  one  after  the  other,  came  on  to  the 
throne  of  Israel,  all  in  the  compass  of  half  a  dozen  verses. 


TRIALS   OF  A  HOUSEKEEPER  493 

We  had  one  old  woman,  who  stayed  a  week,  and  went  away 
with  the  misery  in  her  tooth  ;  one  young  woman,  who  ran 
away  and  got  married ;  one  cook,  who  came  at  night  and 
went  off  before  light  in  the  morning ;  one  very  clever  girl, 
who  stayed  a  month,  and  then  went  away  because  her  mother 
was  sick  ;  another,  who  stayed  six  weeks,  and  was  taken  with 
the  fever  herself  ;  and  during  all  this  time,  who  can  speak 
the  damage  and  destruction  wrought  in  the  domestic  para 
phernalia  by  passing  through  these  multiplied  hands  ? 

What  shall  we  do  ?  Shall  we  give  up  houses,  have  no 
furniture  to  take  care  of,  keep  merely  a  bag  of  meal,  a  por 
ridge  pot,  and  a  pudding  stick,  and  sit  in  our  tent  door  in 
real  patriarchal  independence  ?  What  shall  we  do  ? 


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